Here is an excerpt from the already-quoted fifth paragraph of Deleuze's
article, "What is a *dispositif*?":
Though cruelly interrupted, Foucault's research would have shown that
processes of subjectification could take on quite different forms from the
Greek mode: for example in Christian and social apparatuses
[*dispositifs*] in modern societies, and so on. Can one not think of
apparatuses where subjectification does not come about through
aristocratic life or the aestheticised existence of the free man, but
through the marginalised existence of the 'outsider'? Thus the Sinologist
Tokei explains how the liberated slave somehow lost his social status and
found himself thrown back on an isolated, lamenting, *elegiac* existence,
out of which he was to shape new forms of power and knowledge.
[end excerpt]
Clearly, the kind of thing we see Paul ranting about in Romans is an
example of a different kind of subjectivity:
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no
good thing: for to will is present with me; but [how] to perform that
which is good I find not.
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I
would not, that I do.
Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it,
but sin that dwelleth in me." (Romans 7:18-7:20)
I wonder if there's a good book out there on the construction of
subjectivity among the early Christians, one that perhaps picks up on the
insights of Foucault (and others too, of course) and applies them to that
crucial Western moment. Peter Brown's 1967 book on Augustine has some
elements of this kind of analysis, though Augustine is certainly not
"early" Christiantiy.
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< John S. Ransom 717-2 <
< Political Science 4 <
^ Dickinson College 5 ^
^ Carlisle, PA 17013 - ^
> ransom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 1 <
< Denny 107 7 >
< 1 >
> 6 ^
><^<>^^<>^<>^<>^^>><<>^<^^<`
article, "What is a *dispositif*?":
Though cruelly interrupted, Foucault's research would have shown that
processes of subjectification could take on quite different forms from the
Greek mode: for example in Christian and social apparatuses
[*dispositifs*] in modern societies, and so on. Can one not think of
apparatuses where subjectification does not come about through
aristocratic life or the aestheticised existence of the free man, but
through the marginalised existence of the 'outsider'? Thus the Sinologist
Tokei explains how the liberated slave somehow lost his social status and
found himself thrown back on an isolated, lamenting, *elegiac* existence,
out of which he was to shape new forms of power and knowledge.
[end excerpt]
Clearly, the kind of thing we see Paul ranting about in Romans is an
example of a different kind of subjectivity:
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no
good thing: for to will is present with me; but [how] to perform that
which is good I find not.
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I
would not, that I do.
Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it,
but sin that dwelleth in me." (Romans 7:18-7:20)
I wonder if there's a good book out there on the construction of
subjectivity among the early Christians, one that perhaps picks up on the
insights of Foucault (and others too, of course) and applies them to that
crucial Western moment. Peter Brown's 1967 book on Augustine has some
elements of this kind of analysis, though Augustine is certainly not
"early" Christiantiy.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>><
< John S. Ransom 717-2 <
< Political Science 4 <
^ Dickinson College 5 ^
^ Carlisle, PA 17013 - ^
> ransom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 1 <
< Denny 107 7 >
< 1 >
> 6 ^
><^<>^^<>^<>^<>^^>><<>^<^^<`