Concepts of the Self

Key Concepts (Polity)

by Anthony Elliott

This new and updated edition of Concepts of the Self remains the most lively, lucid and compelling introduction to contemporary controversies over the self and self-identity in the social sciences. Written by an author of international reputation, the book concentrates mainly on the work of social theorists and cultural analysts who have attempted to place the self in relation to psychological processes, social contexts, and historical perspectives.


Mead, Freud, Goffman, Foucault, Chodorow, Kristeva and Baudrillard are among the figures covered; the new edition also introduces material on Zizek. Elliott also connects debates about the self directly to identity politics, the sociology of personal relationships and intimacy, and the politics of sexuality.

The book focuses upon cultural and political issues, and breaks new ground in integrating interdisciplinary perspectives. In analysing debates about the self, Elliott draws extensively on contemporary social and cultural theory. Among the traditions of thought discussed are symbolic interactionism; modern sociology; post-structuralist thought; feminist and queer theory; psychoanalysis; and postmodernism.

Elliott reviews core concepts of the self through an analysis of several connected the complex relation between self and society; the importance of the interpreting self in social life; the reshaping of processes of self-formation; and, the changing character of identity politics. The new edition continues to break new ground by introducing compelling, contemporary material on the globalization of the self.

Concepts of the Self is an accessible and invaluable introductory text for students in the areas of social and political theory, sociology, social psychology, cultural studies, and gender studies.

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published August 29, 2001

Reviews

[Charlie Byers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for a class on sociological ideas of self. It's a nice bird's-eye view of some of the major debates in the area in the 20th century, and earlier theorists who've informed those debates. The focus is on summarizing different theorists' arguments, and my main criticism would be that there isn't quite enough introduction to the ideas being discussed; the chapter on technologies of the self does a fine job of summarizing Foucault's ideas of selfhood, and some of the major rebuttals to them, but never actually talks about what's meant by the phrase 'technologies of the self'. I kept craving a topic sentence. The book also omitted any exploration of theories on race/ethnicity, which was a litte surprising. I think the book can be valuable to sociology students for the way it puts influential theorists in context, but I wish there had been more depth to it.

[vam pire]

a good introduction to *modern* concepts of the self, which is to say, the text focuses entirely on sociology, psychoanalysis and postmodernism... so not exactly a comprehensive ontology of personal identity.

elliot introduces key thinker within these domains and provides some critique of each, which was useful even if i didn't really agree with some of the conclusions he came to.

note: my reading was mostly focused on chapters 3, 4 and 5. I read the introduction on full, glossed over chapter one (i already had a fairly firm understanding of goffman & the sociological perspective), skipped chapter three (on psychoanalysis) entirely, and also skipped chapter 6 (on AI - though i may come back to this later).

despite offering a concise critique of the postmodern tendency to reduce selfhood to an operation of power, elliott's sympathy for the multiplication of individualism renders his conclusions about the state of the self within modernity politically innert in their confusion.

[xenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick outline of some key thinkers in psychology, poststructuralism and the like, but due to its small size, Elliott often ends up summarising a single book, from a single theorist, in three or four pages, which fails to do justice to how broadly and deeply some of these theorists think.

[Nox Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confusion. Yeah. Silly goofy times fr.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read. Great for people who do not know much about the realm of sociology or want to read something thought-provoking.

[Paul Pawlik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magnificently Introductory.