On Becoming God: Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self

"Do we have to conceive of ourselves as isolated individuals, inevitably distanced from other people and from whatever we might mean when we use the word 'God'? On Becoming God offers an innovative approach to the history of the modern Western self by looking at human identity as something people do together rather than on their own. Ben Morgan argues that the shared practices of human identity can be understood as ways of managing and keeping at bay the impulses and experiences associated with the word 'God.' The 'self' is a way of doing things, or of not doing things, with 'God.' The book draws on phenomenology (Heidegger), gender studies (Beauvoir, Butler), and contemporary neuroscience to present a new approach to the history of modern identity. It surveys existing approaches to modern selfhood (Foucault, Charles Taylor) and proposes an alternative account by investigating late medieval mysticism, in particular texts written in Germany by Meister Eckhart and others in the same milieu."--Jacket.