From Self to Selfie

Download or read book From Self to Selfie written by Angus Kennedy and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-08-14 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection charts the rise and the fall of the self, from its emergence as an autonomous agent during the Enlightenment, to the modern-day selfie self, whose existence is realised only through continuous external validation. Tracing the trajectory of selfhood in its historical development - from the Reformation onwards - the authors introduce the classic liberal account of the self, based on ideas of freedom and autonomy, that dominated Enlightenment discourse. Subsequent chapters explore whether this traditional notion has been eclipsed by new, more rigid, categories of identity, that alienate the self from itself and its possibilities: what I am, it seems, has become more important than what I might make of myself. These changing dynamics of selfhood – the transition From Self to Selfie - reveal not only the peculiar ways in which selfhood is problematized in contemporary society, but equally the tragic fragility of the selfie, in the absence of any social authority that could give it some security.