The post-revolutionary self : politics and psyche in France, 1750-1850 / Jan Goldstein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goldstein, Jan, 1946-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cousin, Victor, 1792-1867.

Cousin, Victor.

Psychiatry--France--History--18th century.

Psychiatry.

Psychiatry--France--History--19th century.

Monomania.

Ego (Psychology).

Middle class--France--History--18th century.

Middle class.

Middle class--France--History--19th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 414 p. ) ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the wake of the French Revolution, as attempts to restore political stability to France repeatedly failed, a group of concerned intellectuals identified a likely culprit: the prevalent sensationalist psychology, and especially the flimsy and fragmented self it produced. They proposed a vast, state-run pedagogical project to replace sensationalism with a new psychology that showcased an indivisible and actively willing self, or moi. As conceived and executed by Victor Cousin, this long-lived project singled out the male bourgeoisie for training in selfhood --Cousin and his disciples deemed workers and women incapable of the introspective finesse necessary to appropriate that self in practice.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Introduction: Psychological Interiority versus Self-Talk

I. THE PROBLEM FOR WHICH PSYCHOLOGY FURNISHED A SOLUTION

1. The Perils of Imagination at the End of the Old Regime

2. The Revolutionary Schooling of Imagination

II. THE POLITICS OF SELFHOOD

3. Is There a Self in This Mental Apparatus?

4. An A Priori Self for the Bourgeois Male: Victor Cousin's Project

5. Cousinian Hegemony

6. Religious and Secular Access to the Vie Intérieure: Renan at the Crossroads

7. A Palpable Self for the Socially Marginal: The Phrenological Alternative

Epilogue

Notes

Note on Sources

Index

Notes:

Originally published: 2005.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-397) and index.

David Pinkney Prize of the Society for French Historical Studies

ISBN:

9780674037786

0674037782

OCLC:

433627881