Enigmas of Identity

"We know that it matters crucially to be able to say who we are, why we are here, and where we are going," Peter Brooks writes in Enigmas of Identity. Many of us are also uncomfortably aware that we cannot provide a convincing account of our identity to others or even ourselves. Despite or because of that failure, we keep searching for identity, making it up, trying to authenticate it, and inventing excuses for our unpersuasive stories about it. This wide-ranging book draws on literature, law, and psychoanalysis to examine important aspects of the emergence of identity as a peculiarly modern preoccupation. In particular, the book addresses the social, legal, and personal anxieties provoked by the rise of individualism and selfhood in modern culture. Paying special attention to Rousseau, Freud, and Proust, Brooks also looks at the intersection of individual life stories with the law, and considers the creation of an introspective project that culminates in psychoanalysis. Elegant and provocative, Enigmas of Identity offers new insights into the questions and clues about who we think we are.

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Peter Brooks
• Editore: Princeton University Press
• Contenuto: Libro
• Forma del prodotto: Copertina rigida
• Data pubblicazione: 09.10.2011
• Categoria: Scienze naturali, medicina, informatica, tecnica > Medicina; Scienze umane, arte, musica > Scienze linguistiche e letterarie > Letteratura generale e comparata
• EAN: 9780691151588
• ISBN: 978-0-691-15158-8
• Numero di pagine: 232
• Dimensioni (della confezione): 16.5 x 24.5 x 2 cm
• Categorie: Religion, Sigmund Freud, Aggression, Masturbation, Marcel Proust, Literature, Psychoanalysis, PHILOSOPHY / Mind & Body, Exploration, Libido, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, PSYCHOLOGY / Personality, LITERARY CRITICISM / General, Melodrama, Crime, Arthur Conan Doyle, Determination, Philosophy of Mind, Writing, Narrative, Stendhal, Michel de Montaigne, consciousness, Jacques Lacan, Modernity, The self, ego, identity, personality, Fingerprint, Self-Love, Psychology: the self, ego, identity, personality, Explanation, Professor Moriarty, Forensic Science, Martha Nussbaum, Invention, Wilkie Collins, Vautrin, In Search of Lost Time, Literary studies: general, Romanticism, Novelist, Psychoanalytical and Freudian psychology, Thought, Narcissism, Alphonse Bertillon, personhood, probable cause, PSYCHOLOGY / Psychotherapy / Psychoanalysis, Uniqueness, Death Drive, Pessimism, La peau de chagrin, Self-concept, Detective Fiction, Identity Theft, Renunciation, Attempt, V., Self-knowledge (psychology), egotism, Penis envy, Harvard University Press, The Erotic, physiognomy, The Telling, Pleasure principle (psychology), Carol Armstrong, Kurtz (Heart of Darkness), Bernadette Meyler, Sandra Bermann, Inevitable discovery, moses and monotheism, Civilization and Its Discontents, Robert Post (law professor), lecturer, D. A. Miller, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Search warrant, The Future of an Illusion, Garrett Stewart