The Presence of Self
By (author) R. S. Perinbanayagam
Not available to order
Publication date:
19 January 2000Length of book:
320 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9780847693849
Drawing on ideas from Charles Sanders Peirce, George Herbert Mead, Kenneth Burke, and Mikhail Bakhtin, this work focuses on the centrality of the social act in describing and understanding the beingness of the human individual, situating such acts in dialogic and rhetorical processes. Such processes enable actors to give presence to their selves and, it is claimed, put them into play by using both a logic and a poetic of identity. These arguments are supported by an analysis of everyday conversations, certain inter-personal encounters, and acts of reading and watching sporting engagements.
This is a seminal book of great significance for social psychologists and sociologists, particularly sybmolic interactionists. With great erudition and clarity the author has set forth a basic conception of the self and its development, continuity, and change in the context of prosesses of interaction with others.