I Am Dynamite

An Alternative Anthropology of Power

By: Nigel Rapport

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Paperback | 15 May 2003 | Edition Number 1

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306 Pages

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23.4 x 15.6 x 1.63

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Writer and Auschwitz witness Primo Levi; refugee and engineer Ben Glaser; Artist Stanley Spencer; Israeli ceramicist Rachel Silberstein; Friedrich Nietzsche, the dynamic philosopher. What do all these figures exemplify? Freedom. Individuality. Existential power. The capacity and desire to live a life-project: to make one's life one's work. "I am Dynamite" ignites an alternative theory of the self and will, wrapped up in a combustible assault upon scholarly convention. Asking why the real effort of constructing and living within an identity is so often overlooked, it examines the subjective experience of existing in the world, with the power to define and transform oneself. Nietzsche famously claimed that "an uninjurable, unburiable force is in me, something that gallops over rocks: it is called my Will". Today in the 21st century, in contrast, we are taught to believe that social institutions determine the circumstances and scope of individual lives. But can we really write people out of the social power-equation, or subscribe to a dominant Foucauldian analytics that denies access to genuine truths and freedoms? Considering the trials and triumphs of five very different modern subjects, Nigel Rapport asks: can consciousness of being a self in the world enable control over one's life within it? Calling for a renewed appreciation of the extraordinary within us all, this work seeks to restore knowledge to its essential practical and moral aims.

Industry Reviews

'An important and contentious book... It could stimulate a cult!' - Anthony Cohen, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh

'[Rapport's] use of ethnographic biographies provides an exciting model for future anthropological investigations and helps us to retain understanding and sympathy for people and the reality of their lived worlds for them.' - The Australian Journal of Anthropology

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