Reflectıons of cultural conceptıon of self ın zadıe smıth’s the autograph man
Yükleniyor...
Dosyalar
Tarih
2015
Yazarlar
Dergi Başlığı
Dergi ISSN
Cilt Başlığı
Yayıncı
İnönü Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü
Erişim Hakkı
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Özet
Antropologists think that culture deeply affects people and shapes selves. It is a known fact that
cultural themes have a great influence on the conceptions of self, emotion, child development, mental
disorders and frames of individuals’ cognitive development. For J. Greg Miller, cultural content should
be analyzed as an essential influence on the patterning of psychological structures and processes. So,
there is a close relationship between the self and cultural discourses. Michel Foucault points out that
cultural forms shape subjectivity in a socially constructed manner. Individuals having diverse
inheritances due to culture are in the center of identity problems when a person’s ethnicity is
categorized.
In The Autograph Man, Alex-Li Tandem, buys and sells autographs for a living. Collecting the
signatures of famous people is his favourite occupation. As the son of a Chinese father and Jewish
mother he has a mixed blood and a complex inheritance. He lives alone because his father is dead and his
mother has moved to the country. He does not mind his girlfriend of ten years, Esther, any more. He is
always drunken and does not refrain from smoking pot with his childhood friend Adam in his own life’s
complexity. In the novel difference between Jewish and goyish things is emphasized, and naturally it
creates a perceptual field for the concepts of subjectivity and self. Thus, Zadie Smith tries to describe
Alex-Li’s place in pop culture both as an autograph man clinging to a life full of irony and also a
character having complex inheritance and she gives an oppurtunity to the researchers to study the
Autograph Man in terms of the importance of cultural content in the formation of one’s social identity
with references to cultural themes in a Foucauldian approach.
Key Words: cultural content, subjectivity, self, identity, Alex-Li, Foucault, care of self.
Açıklama
İnönü Üniversitesi Uluslararası Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi Cilt 4, Sayı 2, 2015, s. 11-20.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Cultural content, Subjectivity, Self, İdentity, Alex-Li, Foucault
Kaynak
İnönü Üniversitesi Uluslararası Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi
WoS Q Değeri
Scopus Q Değeri
Cilt
4
Sayı
2
