Why she likes detective stories

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dc.contributor.authorBowcott, Valerie Angelaen_US
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-13T00:05:43Z
dc.date.available2024-08-13T00:05:43Z
dc.date.copyright1996en_US
dc.date.issued1996
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of English
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en
dc.description.abstractIn The Geographical History of America or the Relation of Human Nature to the Human Mind, Gertrude Stein continues her ongoing discussion on the difference between the human mind and human nature. This thesis draws on Stein's key distinction between entity and identity to examine the notion of "identification" and "misrecognition" in the theoretical approaches to the subject employed, respectively, by Sigmund Freud and Louis Althusser. I will argue that Stein's human nature does not identify the object, but rather identifies the absence of a Subject which is the prerequisite "standard" for all agreements within a consensual meaning system: i.e., the greater narrative. By considering human nature's propensity to identify in the "absence" of the Subject, I follow Stein's lead and adhere to her principal distinction between the human mind and human nature: that they are not related in anyway. This is inevitably the point of departure in a comparison of what I term Stein's "absent Subject," Freud's "total Subject" and Althusser's "S/subject." This thesis proposes that a clear separation of entity and identity within a theoretical approach to subjectivity is a potentially liberating strategy for a self-reflexivity that is possible only by distinguishing what is related from what is in relation. As Stein suggests, when you begin with a body, you get rid of human nature and you free up the mind to see.
dc.format.extent55 pages
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/17058
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.titleWhy she likes detective storiesen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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