On becoming God
Subtitle: late medieval mysticism and the modern Western self
By: Ben Morgan
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 301
ISBN-13: 9780823239924
Subjects: Self (Philosophy); Self; History; Mysticism; Psychoanalysis and philosophy
Description: "Do we have to conceive of ourselves as isolated individuals, inevitably distanced from other people and from whatever we might mean when we use the word 'God'? On Becoming God offers an innovative approach to the history of the modern Western self by looking at human identity as something people do together rather than on their own. Ben Morgan argues that the shared practices of human identity can be understood as ways of managing and keeping at bay the impulses and experiences associated with the word 'God.' The 'self' is a way of doing things, or of not doing things, with 'God.' The book draws on phenomenology (Heidegger), gender studies (Beauvoir, Butler), and contemporary neuroscience to present a new approach to the history of modern identity. It surveys existing approaches to modern selfhood (Foucault, Charles Taylor) and proposes an alternative account by investigating late medieval mysticism, in particular texts written in Germany by Meister Eckhart and others in the same milieu."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p.         ) and index.
Table of contents: title: Some recent version of mysticism; title: Empty epiphanies in modernist and postmodernist theory; title: The gender of human togetherness; title: Histories of modern selfhood; title: Meister Eckhart's anthropology; title: Becoming God in fourteenth-century Europe; title: The makings of the modern self; title: Taking leave of Sigmund Freud; title: Everyday acknowledgments.