Made-Up People: Conceptualizing Histories of the Self and the Human Sciences

This chapter discusses the different concepts and theories historians have used to discuss the reflexive relationship between the human sciences and the self, that is to say, how the human sciences have altered human selves and vice versa. It highlights both applications and critiques of these theories. The chapter begins with the Erving Goffman’s and Mary McIntosh’s sociological theories on the presentation of self, labelling theory and role theory, and discusses their influence on the historiography of homosexuality. The chapter proceeds with a discussion of Michel Foucault’s work and historians’ uses of the concept of “technologies of the self”. Next, the chapter examines Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity and the relational nature of the self. Ian Hacking’s influential concepts of “making up people” and “looping effects” are then discussed. Since the new millennium, historians have adopted new approaches inspired by practice theory and by the neurosciences. These theories, their applications for the history of emotions and deep history, and their critiques are analyzed. Finally, the chapter highlights some recurring critiques and remaining questions

Schavuiten op het schavot: een inleiding en een pleidooi

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Recensie van S. Vanden Borre, Toga's voor 't Hoge. Geschiedenis van de Leuvense universiteit in Kortrijk

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Sources of the Self From the Renaissance to the 20th Century

The history of the self studies continuities and changes in ideas about and experiences of the individual mind through time, attending to questions of individuality, identity, stability, self-possession, and interiority. Traditionally, this subject has often been approached as an intellectual history, analyzing philosophers’ explicit writings about the self. Through the work of people such as René Descartes, John Locke, and Immanuel Kant, scholars have traced a growing sense of individuality and self-possession since the 16th century, and an increasing feeling of inner depth since the 18th century. The focus on intellectual sources of the self has been criticized, however, by scholars who stress the importance of practices and of social differences. They have broadened the scope of the field by looking at cultural sources, such as autobiographical writing, literature, art, rituals, and festivities. Still other historians have criticized the absence of power in many accounts of the history of the self and stress the institutional and political sources of the self, including religious institutions, schools, and legal systems. Throughout these different approaches, debates continue about whether a “modern self” can be traced, and when such a modern self can be situated. While many recent scholars stress the need to examine different cultures of the self at any given time in their own right, others argue that it remains important to trace grand shifts in this history.Online publication has no ISBNstatus: Published onlin

Ik en de andersheid van het verleden

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Het verhaal van de achttiende eeuw

Two recent documentary series, Het verhaal van Nederland and Het verhaal van Vlaanderen, both modeled after a Danish example, purport to tell the ‘story’ of The Netherlands and Flanders in ten episodes. In both cases, one episode centers on the eighteenth century. This article discusses the political focus of these episodes, the diverging historical self-perceptions they imply, and the controversies surrounding the series

A Useful Science: Criminal Interrogation and the Turn to Psychology in Germany Around 1800

This article argues that psychology gained prestige as a useful and practical science in Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Focusing on discussions of the practice of criminal interrogation, the article shows that around 1800, legal scholars increasingly turned to psychology as a solution to practical problems of criminal justice that had arisen with the abolition of judicial torture. Whereas up to the eighteenth century most German legal scholars had found that their own “experience” sufficed to advise on interrogations, around 1800 they started to point out the necessity of psychological knowledge. Psychology hence became not only a field with specialists, journals, and courses but also a field of knowledge that people turned to to solve problems in wholly different areas

Managing Stigma: Prostitutes and their Communities in the Southern Netherlands, 1750-1800

© Histoire sociale / Social History. This article examines the relationship between prostitutes and the communities in which they lived through the lens of stigma and stigma management. In the Southern Netherlands between 1750 and 1800, prostitutes were well aware of social tensions and negative sanctions that could result from their behaviour. To avoid conflict, they often concealed their trade in everyday interactions. If they were unable or unwilling to do so, families, neighbours, and authorities often felt the need to take action to safeguard the values of the social order—and their own reputations. For immediate support, prostitutes therefore often turned to each other.status: publishe