Writing the Self - by Peter Heehs (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The self has a history. In the West, the idea of the soul entered Christianity with the Church Fathers, notably Augustine. During the Renaissance the idea of the individual attained preeminence, as in the works of Montaigne. In the seventeenth century, philosophers such as Descartes formulated notions of selfhood that did not require a divine foundation; in the next century, Hume grew skeptical of the self's very existence. Ideas of the self have changed markedly since the Romantic period and most scholars today regard it as at best a mental construct.
First-person genres such as diaries and memoirs have provided an outlet for self-expression. Protestant diaries replaced the Catholic confessional, but secular diaries such as Pepys's may reveal yet more about the self. After Richardson, novels competed with diaries and memoirs as vehicles of self-expression, though memoirs survived and continue to thrive, while the diary has found a new incarnation in the personal blog.
Writing the Self narrates the intertwined histories of the self and of self-expression through first-person literature.

Review Quotes

"Heehs undertakes the challenging task of summarizing the history of the concepts of self and self-consciousness, as well as a history of self-expression as seen in first-person accounts...His thinking on the subtle distinctions in recent demarcations of a self should attract many readers." --Frederick M. Smith, University of Iowa, Religious Studies Review

"Peter Heehs's Writing the Self: Diaries, Memoirs, and the History of the Self offers a concise yet thorough introduction to over 2000 years of textual explorations of the self: major works, writers, genres, and conceptual and theoretical questions ... The novelty of Heehs's book lies in the focus on autobiographical texts, and the skilful weaving of primary sources and larger theoretical shifts. Available as a slim paperback, Heehs's book is also more accessible than many of these other monographs. Heehs demonstrates broad knowledge of literary, religious, and philosophical history through examples ranging from canonical writers and philosophers to lesser-known figures such as the visionary Hildegard of Bingen, the Sufi Ruzbihan Baqli, and the psychologist and diarist Marion Milner. Heehs is an adept storyteller, presenting intertwined characters and plots that drive the story being told and make the book a pleasure to read." --Kathryn Sederberg, Life Writing

About the Author

Peter Heehs is an independent scholar based in India. He has written or edited nine books and published more than fifty articles. His publications include The Lives of Sri Aurobindo (Columbia University Press, 2008), Indian Religions: A Historical Reader of Spiritual Expression and Experience (New York University Press, 2002), Nationalism, Terrorism, Communalism (Oxford University Press, 1998, reprinted 2000, 2005, 2006) and The Bomb in Bengal: The Rise of Revolutionary Terrorism in India 1900-1910 (Oxford University Press, 1993). His books have been translated into Russian, Dutch, French and Japanese.