Enigmas of Identity - Softcover

"A wide range of knowledge allows Brooks to make myriad connections and to cast a wider net, as it were, around his topic, finding resonances in many places."--Stephan Delbos, Prague Post "Rich, complex, and rewarding."--Choice "Elegant and provocative, Enigmas of Identity offers new insights into the questions and clues about who we think we are."--World Book Industry "Brooks's aim--to enrich his reader's thinking about identity--was certainly fulfilled for this reader, and should be for anyone who has a broad education including the literary territory which the book takes for granted. Readers with a different background, such as my students, might find Brooks's approach rambling and elitist. Let us be thankful that there is still room in publishing today for such a rewarding elitist ramble."--John Joseph, European Legacy

"We know that it matters crucially to be able to say who we are, why we are here, and where we are going," Peter Brooks writes in Enigmas of Identity. Many of us are also uncomfortably aware that we cannot provide a convincing account of our identity to others or even ourselves. Despite or because of that failure, we keep searching for identity, making it up, trying to authenticate it, and inventing excuses for our unpersuasive stories about it. This wide-ranging book draws on literature, law, and psychoanalysis to examine important aspects of the emergence of identity as a peculiarly modern preoccupation.

In particular, the book addresses the social, legal, and personal anxieties provoked by the rise of individualism and selfhood in modern culture. Paying special attention to Rousseau, Freud, and Proust, Brooks also looks at the intersection of individual life stories with the law, and considers the creation of an introspective project that culminates in psychoanalysis.

Elegant and provocative, Enigmas of Identity offers new insights into the questions and clues about who we think we are.