New book by Ingemar Haag

Ingemar Haag, Associate Professor of Literature at Stockholm University, has written the new book Vanishing Selves: Negotiating Selfhood in Self-Representational Works by Goethe, Sand, and Nietzsche (Peter Lang GmbH).

Detail of the book cover to Vanishing Selves
Detail of the book cover of Vanishing Selves (Peter Lang GmbH). 2021.

This study examines a series of self-representations from the 19th century (by Goethe, Sand, Nietzsche) that obstruct a confessional and psychologizing mode by diminishing the significance of the self. The theoretical inspiration is drawn from thinkers like Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and others, who give priority to the individual's close attachment to a multifaceted world. This approach will lead us to themes and concepts like "participation," "perception," "togetherness," "otherness," "corporeality," "collectivism," "publicness," and "sociality." Vanishing Selves displays different forms of attachment to the world and identifies the ethical and existential potential in the affirmation of a world.