Sovereign Self

Elisabeth Roudinesco is Professor of History at the University of Paris

“In this profoundly compelling and exceptionally far-reaching book, Elisabeth Roudinesco ruthlessly exposes the benighted logic behind the emancipatory countenance of contemporary identity politics. Fierce, fearless, and forward-looking, she reclaims the legitimate right to an open debate in a world in which people’s desperate search for a redemptive identity has elicited new forms of intellectual, social, and ideological violence. I expect this book to create a storm, which will not only be perfect, but totally unavoidable and absolutely necessary.”Dany Nobus, Professor of Psychoanalytic Psychology, Brunel University London“Roudinesco’s book makes an important, timely, and courageous contribution to the vexed issue of identity politics. Debunking ideologies that take ‘his majesty the ego’ as a weapon, her book shows concretely how the truth of the political subject emerges where identity fails. This is the work of a true historian, while touching the nerve of crucial debates of our present times.”Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania and American Academy of Arts and Sciences“We are blessed to have such a guide into the murkiest regions of high theory.”Law & Liberty

• AcknowledgementsPreface 1. Assigning IdentitiesBeirut 2005: who am I?SecularismsThe politics of NarcissusBerkeley 19962. The Galaxy of GenderParis 1949: one is not born a womanVienna 1912: Is anatomy destiny?Highlights and disappointments of gender studiesTransidentities Inquisitorial folliesPsychiatry in full retreatNew York: Queer NationDisseminating human genderI am neither white nor woman nor man, but half Lebanese3. Deconstructing RaceParis 1952: race does not existColonialism and anticolonialism“Nègre je suis”Writing toward AlgeriaMixed-race identities4. Postcolonialities“Is Sartre still alive?”Descartes, a white male colonialist Flaubert and Kuchuk HanemTehran 1979: dreaming of a crusadeThe subaltern identity5. The Labyrinth of IntersectionalityMemories in dispute“Je suis Charlie”Iconoclastic rage6. Great ReplacementsOneself against allThe terror of invasion“Big Other”: from Boulouris to La Campagne de France Epilogue Works CitedNotesIndex