The Mirror of the Self: Sexuality, Self-Knowledge, and the Gaze in the Early Roman Empire (Hardback)
$49.59 - Save $2.60 (4%) - RRP $52.19 Free delivery worldwide (to United States and
all these other countries) Usually dispatched within 48 hours | |Short Description for The Mirror of the Self People in the ancient world thought of vision as an ethical tool and a tactile sense. Gazing upon someone was treated as a path to philosophical self-knowledge, but the question of tactility also introduced an erotic element. This title asserts that these links among vision, sexuality, and self-knowledge are key to the understanding of the self.
Full description- Publisher: University of Chicago Press
- Published: 11 July 2006
- Format: Hardback 312 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: European History | Ancient History: To C 500 CE | Classical History / Classical Civilisation | Western Philosophy: Ancient, To C 500
- ISBN 13: 9780226038353 ISBN 10: 0226038351
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Full description for The Mirror of the Self
People in the ancient world thought of vision as both an ethical tool and a tactile sense, akin to touch. Gazing upon someone - or oneself - was treated as a path to philosophical self-knowledge, but the question of tactility introduced an erotic element as well. In "The Mirror of the Self", Shadi Bartsch asserts that these links among vision, sexuality, and self-knowledge are key to the classical understanding of the self. Weaving together literary theory, philosophy, and social history, Bartsch traces this complex notion of self from Plato's Greece to Seneca's Rome. She starts by showing how ancient authors envisioned the mirror as both a tool for ethical self-improvement and, paradoxically, a sign of erotic self-indulgence. Her reading of the Phaedrus, for example, demonstrates that the mirroring gaze in Plato, because of its sexual possibilities, could not be adopted by Roman philosophers and their students. Bartsch goes on to examine the Roman treatment of the ethical and sexual gaze, and she traces how self-knowledge, the philosopher's body, and the performance of virtue all played a role in shaping the Roman understanding of the nature of selfhood. Culminating in a profoundly original reading of Medea, "The Mirror of the Self" illustrates how Seneca, in his Stoic quest for self-knowledge, embodies the Roman view, marking a new point in human thought about self-perception. Bartsch leads readers on a journey that unveils divided selves, moral hypocrisy, and lustful Stoics - and offers fresh insights about seminal works. At once sexy and philosophical, "The Mirror of the Self" will be required reading for classicists, philosophers, and anthropologists alike.
