Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Conceiving a Human Being

1. The Choice of Law: Autonomy between Norm and Creation
2. Mature Subjects: Physical Education and the Political Child
3. Intoxicated Citizens: America’s Drug War and the Body Politic
4. Man Is a Political Animal: Self-Discipline and Its Beastly Other
5. Fit to Be Tied: Exercise Fads and Our Addiction to Autonomy

Conclusion: Freedom and Self-Governance

Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Claire E. Rasmussen is associate professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware.

Reviews

"This captivating book is about the paradox of freedom that we moderns experience as the compulsion to autonomy. Whether we are becoming adolescents, addicts, vegans, or athletes we subject ourselves to become independent so that we can experience freedom. This drive to experience freedom divides those who become autonomous (mature and respectable) and those who must be governed. The book is an impressive intervention on the paradox of freedom that is at once a space of possibility and oppression. Claire E. Rasmussen shows a behind-the-scenes glimpse of intriguing and inspiring subjectivities through that space." —Engin Isin, The Open University

"This book is a provocative, compelling, and wide-ranging analysis of the self-contained subject. Rasmussen both historicizes and critiques the concept of the sovereign self." —Kennan Ferguson, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee