Rise Of The Avatar
Introductory Essay: Through the Looking-Glass of Facebook
Our Facebook profiles provide a glimpse of the collective foundations of our individual selves. Mead and Simmel lay the foundations for thinking about the social origins of the self, and Goffman, Foucault, and others provide provocative takes on what identity means in today’s complicated world.
Schwartz, Barry. 2004. The Paradox of Choice: How Less is More. New York: HarperCollins.
Book Theme:
Social psychologist Schwartz discusses how choice overwhelms us and leaves us dissatisfied. A great contemporary expansion of Simmel’s ideas on the personal consequences associated with the proliferation of cultural options in modern societies.
Rose, Nikolas. 2006. The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Book Theme:
Rose explores the consequences of twenty-first-century medicine’s ability to alter our selves at the molecular level. Takes Foucauldian thinking on identity into the age of the human genome.
Rose, Nikolas. 1998. Inventing Our Selves: Psychology, Power, and Personhood. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Book Theme:
A leading Foucault scholar argues that the discipline of psychology has played a huge part in the construction of contemporary personhood. Psychology, he provocatively argues, does not discover who we are. It invents who we are.
Jacobsen, Michael Hviid, ed. The Contemporary Goffman. New York: Routledge.
Book Theme:
This collection of fifteen essays from various Goffman scholars discusses his lasting legacy in contemporary sociology. Manning’s chapter on the interaction order of two Boston campus taverns may be of particular interest to Social Theory Re-Wired readers.
Hessler, Peter. 2007. “China’s Instant Cities.” National Geographic, June.
Book Theme:
This award-winning article and photo essay explores the construction sites behind the jaw-dropping urbanization of China. Read it alongside Simmel’s Metropolis and Mental Life. Full text and photographs available here. The New York Times also has a photo essay on Chinese cities.
Hayles, N. Katherine. 1999. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Book Theme:
In an age of virtual reality and advanced biotechnologies, Hayles has us ponder whether our identities now extend beyond the human.
Goffman, Erving. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Book Theme:
Goffman’s classic exploring how certain characteristics can spoil someone’s identity in the face of others is a great addition to any course delving into the sticky issues of the self.
Gamson, Joshua. 1998. Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Book Theme:
A smart and often funny look into the practices of sexual confession on television talk shows. A great companion to Foucault’s work on sexuality and discourse.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. 1993. “The Five Sexes.” The Sciences. March/April: 20–25.
Book Theme:
Renowned biologist Fausto-Sterling explains how human biology does not fit into two and only two sexes.
Colapinto, John. 1998. “The True Story of John/Joan.” Rolling Stone, December 11, 54–97.
Book Theme:
This award-winning article about David Reimann, whose sex reassignment as a young boy due to a botched circumcision later became a medical scandal, raises important issues about sexual identity and is cited by Butler in Undoing Gender as an example of how “intersex” is oversimplified as a medical problem.
