Cult of the will
Subtitle: nervousness and the forging of a modern self in Germany
By: Michael Cowan.
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: University Park, Pa
Language: eng
Number of pages: 343
ISBN-13: 9780271032061
Subjects: Will; Self; Power (Philosophy); Neurasthenia -- Social aspects; Germany -- History
Description: "Cult of the Will is the first comprehensive study of modernity's preoccupation with willpower. From Nietzsche's 'will to power' to the fantasy of a 'triumph of the will' under Nazism, the will -- its pathologies and potential cures -- was a topic of urgent debates in European modernity. In this study, Michael Cowan examines the emergence of 'will therapy' and its impact on arts and culture in Germany after 1900. The book's five chapters lead readers through cross sections of modern German cultural history, including not only literature and aesthetics but also self-help medicine, economics, body culture, and pedagogy. Modernity's fixation on willpower helped prepare the way for fascism, but this trajectory is not Cowan's main concern. His focus falls rather on more widespread 'technologies of the self' and their role in the effort to reimagine agency for a modern subject caught up in increasingly complex systemic networks."--Publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Reimagining the will in the age of nervousness; title: Capitalism and Abulia; title: Entr'acte : willpower in the age of enterprise; title: Healing the will : popular medicine and the emergence of will therapy; title: Training the will : gymnastics and body culture; title: Educating the will : reform pedagogy and the school of rhythm; title: Mapping the will : European nervousness and American willpower; title: Afterword: Notes on the persistence of will therapy.