Why self-writing and the hupomnemata? In the paragraphs ahead I explain how writing is central to the question of personal blogging. I briefly summarise Michel Foucault’s theories of self-writing and propose how they might be used to develop an understanding of self-creation through personal blogging. The central question of my thesis is “What is a [...]
Heather Armstrong (Dooce), August 2005 :: Rebecca Blood: Bloggers On Blogging: “Some days I feel my website writing itself”. What I find interesting here is Armstrong’s reference to her website having a life of its own. Such an understanding of a blog is anticipated by Foucault in that he suggests that self-writing isn’t the revealing [...]
Self-writing is likened to the digestion of food. It’s all very well to read many books but at some point the bee must return to the hive and turn the pollen into food. Put another way we must stop eating and digest our food (what we read) so that it becomes a part of our [...]
It’s fascinating to see that Ellen Simonetti appears to be going through something of an identity crisis. She’s changed the name of her blog to Diary of a Human Being. I find it interesting because it plays to much of what I’m reading in Technologies of the Self. I note that she claims to be [...]
Michel Foucault (1998): “This contact between the technologies of domination of others and those of the self I call governmentality” (p. 19). In ToS Foucault was more interested in the latter.The Greeks believed it was important to take care of oneself but this was replaced by the now more common concept of know thyself. But [...]
In Technologies of the Self Foucault states: “[In ancient Greece] it was generally acknowledged that it was good to be reflective, at least briefly…Writing was also important in the culture of taking care of oneself. One of the main features of taking care involved taking notes on oneself to be reread, …and keeping notebooks in [...]