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Michel Foucault and the Practices of “Spirituality”: Self-Transformation in the History of the Human Sciences

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The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences

Abstract

Prompted by scholarship which has proposed that Western selfhood beginning in the nineteenth century was largely defined as a stable and static form of self-identity, this chapter turns to the late writings and lectures of Michel Foucault and his account of “spirituality,” or the ethical practices of conversion and transformation. While Foucault posits that spirituality was a hallmark of ancient ethical traditions, he proposes nonetheless that vestiges of a self-transformative ethics continue to be evident in two particular post-eighteenth-century doctrines of thought – namely, Marxism and psychoanalysis, which tacitly espoused a political and medical form of spirituality, respectively. This chapter considers the modern perseverance of the notion of spirituality in the context of radical political and medical doctrines.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Nima Bassiri

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  1. Nima Bassiri
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Correspondence to Nima Bassiri .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    David McCallum

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  1. Cultural History Research Group, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Elwin Hofman

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Bassiri, N. (2022). Michel Foucault and the Practices of “Spirituality”: Self-Transformation in the History of the Human Sciences. In: McCallum, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4106-3_73-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4106-3_73-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-4106-3

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