European University Institute Library

Crisis of authority, politics, trust, and truth-telling in Freud and Foucault, Nancy Luxon, University of Minnesota

eng

index present

non fiction

Crisis of authority

electronic resource

dictionaries

859537274

Nancy Luxon, University of Minnesota

Cambridge Social Sciences eBooks

politics, trust, and truth-telling in Freud and Foucault

Contemporary social and political theory has reached an impasse about a problem that had once seemed straightforward: how can individuals make ethical judgments about power and politics? Crisis of Authority analyzes the practices that bind authority, trust and truthfulness in contemporary theory and politics. Drawing on newly available archival materials, Nancy Luxon locates two models for such practices in Sigmund Freud's writings on psychoanalytic technique and Michel Foucault's unpublished lectures on the ancient ethical practices of 'fearless speech', or parrhesia. Luxon argues that the dynamics provoked by the figures of psychoanalyst and truth-teller are central to this process. Her account offers a more supple understanding of the modern ethical subject and new insights into political authority and authorship.--, Provided by publisher

Authority and its discontents -- Risk and resistance -- Conversations with the unknown -- What is an author(ity)? -- The authorial subject -- Audiences and the proliferation of meaning -- Breaking the frame, composing the event -- Conclusion