Identity in Cultural Encounters: Greenblatt’s Re-appropriation of the Foucauldian Subject
Identity in Cultural Encounters: Greenblatt’s Re-appropriation of the Foucauldian Subject

Summary/Abstract: Foucault’s somewhat striking remark that man is an invention in Les mots et les choses has triggered reconsideration of the notion of subject across different disciplines. In addition, his conception of the subject as embedded in a complex network of power and knowledge has provided impetus for the politico-historical turn in Renaissance studies more specifically known as New Historicism. This essay will trace the trajectory of Stephen Greenblatt’s project of “historization of the subject” with a view to pointing out that in this project the Foucauldian anti-humanist notion of subject takes on a new form under the admitted influence of such anthropologists as Geertz and Rabinow. In line with the anthropologists, Greenblatt seeks to analyse how one can construct and recognize his own identity as a social product in encountering a culture distinct from his own – and what Harold Veeser refers to as ‘cultural organicism’ in Greenblatt is determined by this objective. The essay thus aims to thoroughly examine the Foucauldian legacy in Greenblatt, with an emphasis on how the Foucauldian analysis of the subject has been re-appropriated by the latter.

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