Table of Contents

preface
acknowledgements

1. Introduction
2. The Narrated Self:Time and the Dramatisation of Historical Agency
3. The Publication of the Self: the Sublimation of Personal Identity in Publicity and Art Appreciation
4. The Disintegration of the Self: the Origins of Abstraction and the De-objectification of the World
5. The Democratisation of the Self: the Integration of Creative Endeavour into the Fabric of Daily Life and the Death of Art
6. The Trans-personalisation of the Self: the Material Culture of Communication and the Communalisation of Identity
7. The Psychological Self: The Pathology of Art and Cinematographic Modes of Self-Remembering
8. The Linguistic Self: the De-verberation of the Self and the End of Meaning

bibliography
index

Promotional Information

Offers a radically new approach to the question of personal identity, asking not only ‘how and why is it under threat?’ but also ‘given that we understand the self-sense to be a constructed phenomenon, why do we cling to it?’

About the Author

Andrew Spira is Course Leader, Christie's Education London, UK and a curator. He is author of Avant-Garde Icon: Russian Avant-garde Art and the Icon Painting Tradition (2008).

Reviews

‘Astonishingly brilliant and well-informed. While the concept of the self lends itself amply to philosophical and psychological analysis, through logic and introspection, this is not the approach taken here. Simulated Selves identifies the self-sense from the traces it has left in the historical environment and this is central to the book’s originality.’
*Charles Lemert, John E. Andrus Professor of Social Theory and University Professor Emeritus, Wesleyan University, USA*

Erudite, elegant and wide-ranging: a fascinating history of the modern undoing of the self by and through art
*Sacha Golob, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, King’s College London, UK*

A sweeping and suggestive account of how the 'self-sense' of modern subjects came to be undermined by the cultural forces that earlier fostered its construction. Spira's dialectical vision and lucid writing style make this a compelling read.
*Patrick Coleman, Research Professor, University of California, Los Angeles, USA*