The Ploy of Instinct: Victorian Sciences of Nature and Sexuality in Liberal Governance (Forms of Living) - Softcover

Frederickson, Kathleen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0823262529 ISBN 13: 9780823262526

Verlag: Fordham University Press, 2014

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Críticas:

"...this is a very inspiring, well-researched, and methodically advanced study that everyone interested in the theory and history of instinct, as well as related concepts, ought to consult." * -Victorian Studies * "The Ploy of Instinct makes a substantial contribution to the history of the natural and sexual sciences and is of significant interest to researchers working on the history of sexuality, gender, and politics." * -Isis Review * "A smart, rigorously researched and fascinating book that will be a rich contribution to Victorian Studies, sexuality and gender studies, and history of science scholarship." -- -Teresa Mangum * University of Iowa * The rational actor has long been considered the central figure of liberal subjectivity. In this intriguing book, which brings together queer theory and Victorian science studies, Kathleen Frederickson shows how nineteenth-century thinkers adopted instinct, rather than reason, as a desirable quality for the arts of governance. Counter-intuitive, surprising, and utterly convincing, The Ploy of Instinct is a refreshing addition to the intellectual history of liberalism. -- -Lisa Moore * The University of Texas at Austin *

Reseña del editor:

It is paradoxical that instinct became a central term for late Victorian sexual sciences as they were elaborated in the medicalized spaces of confession and introspection, given that instinct had long been defined in its opposition to self-conscious thought. The Ploy of Instinct ties this paradox to instinct's deployment in conceptualizing governmentality. Instinct's domain, Frederickson argues, extended well beyond the women, workers, and "savages" to whom it was so often ascribed. The concept of instinct helped to gloss over contradictions in British liberal ideology made palpable as turn-of-the-century writers grappled with the legacy of Enlightenment humanism. For elite European men, instinct became both an agent of "progress" and a force that, in contrast to desire, offered a plenitude in answer to the alienation of self-consciousness. This shift in instinct's appeal to privileged European men modified the governmentality of empire, labor, and gender. The book traces these changes through parliamentary papers, pornographic fiction, accounts of Aboriginal Australians, suffragette memoirs, and scientific texts in evolutionary theory, sexology, and early psychoanalysis.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Fordham University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0823262529
• ISBN 13: 9780823262526
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 236