Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Reclusiveness and posthumanist subjectivity

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Subjectivity Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

What happens if one wishes to affirm reclusiveness at the very time in history when it is physically and pragmatically most difficult to be alone? In such times, what does it mean to be a recluse and to opt out of present and future connectedness? The article briefly reviews strategies and cultures of reclusiveness in history, from anchoritic existences to the enigmatic withdrawals of figures like Maurice Blanchot. It also assesses claims of inescapable panopticism in contemporary social structures. Reference is made to fictional and nonfictional narratives that prefigure the fortunes of reclusiveness in posthuman times. At the same time, however, the article tries to avoid any glib suggestion that reclusiveness is technologically readaptive. Rather, it considers how the natures, cultures and timescapes of aloneness in a futurological age of techno-generalized nodality might help us better understand the atemporal and timeless dimensions of posthumanist subjectivity.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Agamben, G. (1988) Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Translated by D. Heller-Roazen. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben, G. (1999a) The Man without Content. Translated by G. Albert. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Agamben, G. (1999b) Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy. Translated by D. Heller-Roazen. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bainbridge, J. (1955) The braveness to be herself. Life, 24 January.

  • Barthes, R. (2002) Comment Vivre Ensemble. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barthes, R. (2009) The face of Garbo. Mythologies. Translated by A. Lavers. London: Vintage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baym, N. (2010) Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Cambridge, MA: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bident, C. (1998) Maurice Blanchot: Partenaire Invisible. Paris: Champ Vallon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blanchot, M. (1982) The essential solitude. In: G. Jasipovici (ed.) The Sirens’ Song. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blanchot, M. (1997a) Refusal. Friendship. Translated by E. Rottenberg. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blanchot, M. (1997b) The terror of identification. In: Friendship. Translated by E. Rottenberg. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Booher, A. (2007) Speakeasy forum: Erasing myself from the Internet, http://forums.cnet.com/7723-6130_102-263027/erasing-myself-from-the-internet/, accessed 5 December 2011.

  • Bruns, G. (2010) On Ceasing to Be Human. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, A. (1954) The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume I. London: Virtue and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Byron, L. (1986) Darkness. In: J.J. McGann (ed.) The Complete Poetical Works, Volume IV, Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cadava, E., Connor, P. and Nancy, J.-L. (eds.) (1991) Who Comes After the Subject? New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, R. (2007) The Road to Southend Pier. Petersfield, UK: Harriman House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clayton, R. and Tomlinson, H. (2001) Privacy and Freedom of Expression. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeLillo, D. (2010) Point Omega. New York: Scribner.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, J. (1988) Mémoires – pour Paul de Man. Paris: Galilée.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, J. (1998) Faith and knowledge: The two sources of ‘Religion’ at the limits of reason alone. In: J. Derrida and G. Vattimo (eds.) Religion. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ernst, M.L. and Schwarz, A.U. (1962) Privacy: The Right to be Let Alone. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • France, P. (1996) Hermits: The Insights of Solitude. London: Chatto and Windus.

    Google Scholar 

  • Franzen, J. (2002) How to Be Alone. London: Picador.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, E. (2009) The Last American Man. London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grainville, J.-B.F.-X.C. de (2002) The Last Man. Translated by I.F. and M. Clarke. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halmos, P. (1952) Solitude and Privacy: A Study of Social Isolation, Its Causes and Therapy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harpham, G.G. (1987) The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hölderlin, F. (1990) Hyperion and Selected Poems. New York: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jagodinzki, C.M. (1999) Privacy and Print: Reading and Writing in Seventeenth-Century England. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krakauer, J. (1996) Into the Wild. New York: Villard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kroker, A. and Weinstein, M. (1994) The hyper-texted body, or Nietzsche gets a modem. C Theory, http://ww.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=144, accessed 5 December 2011.

  • McKeon, M. (2005) The Secret History of Domesticity. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nancy, J.-L. (2000) Being Singular Plural. Translated by R.D. Richardson and A.E. O’Byrne. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Papacharissi, Z.A. (2010) A Private Sphere: Democracy in a Digital Age. Cambridge, MA: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pope, A. (1963) The Poems of Alexander Pope. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ronell, A. (1989) The Telephone Book: Technology – Schizophrenia – Electric Speech. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sartre, J.-P. (1967) What is Literature? Translated by B. Frechtman. London: Methuen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spacks, P.M. (2003) Privacy: Concealing the Eighteenth-Century Self. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Stiegler, B. (2009) Technics and Time 2: Disorientation. Translated by S. Barker. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Storr, A. (1988) Solitude: A Return to the Self. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tambini, D. and Heyward, C. (2002) Ruled by Recluses: Privacy, journalism and the media after the Human Rights Act. London: Institute for Public Policy Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tugendhat, M. and Christie, I. (2002) The Law of Privacy and the Media. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Warby, M., Moreham, N., Christie, I. and Tugendhat, M. (eds.) (2011) The Law of Privacy and the Media, Second edition. Oxford; UK: Oxford University Press.

  • Warren, S.D. and Brandeis, L.D. (1890) The right to privacy. Harvard Law Review 4.5 (15 December): 193–220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wimbush, L. and Valantasis, R. (1998) Asceticism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Malta, Msida, MSD2080, Malta

    Ivan Callus

Authors
  1. Ivan Callus
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Callus, I. Reclusiveness and posthumanist subjectivity. Subjectivity 5, 290–311 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2012.12

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2012.12

Keywords

Search

Navigation