Self

Self. The meaning, evolution, and science. Research Blog. 

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Wrapping things up...

Through my research journey I have learned so much about the word “self”, the different ideas and ways to think about “self”, and how so many other words connect to this one word or relate to it in some way. I have learned a lot about the research process through all the searches, definitions, and outside thinking. To conduct successful research, I thought about the way my keyword  corresponds and relates to me. I did this because being able to connect with the word allows for more personal research to be done, and then it is easier to go from there. I developed a list of words associated with my keyword, as well as words with my keyword in it. This can often put your keyword in context, and see how well you will be able to integrate other words into your search when looking for books, documents, literary texts, and articles. 

As far as advice goes, I definitely recommend making some sort of outline or idea web for your word(s)/idea/research question. Is there anything specific that you’re looking for? if so, then write it down, and continue your web. If not, then find related/relative keywords that will help put you in the right direction, the of course continue our web. Include question, ideas, hypothesis each in their own different bubbles. Use the resources and databases available to you in order to begin or continue your research, use your relative keywords, and all the information from your outline/word web. 

Lastly be sure to understand the other ways in which to understand your keyword, which can be extremely useful in searches. Thinking “outside the box” can also help you take information from sources that may not be exactly what you’re looking for, which may still be useful. Write things down, include them in your web or make a note on your outline. If it doesn’t make sense, it may later. Thank you to anyone and everyone who reads and analyzes my research, it can get intense through the searching processes, but finding things semi-related or out of the ordinary can make things fun.

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Bibliography...

Baier, Annette. Postures of the Mind Essays on Mind and Morals. University of   Minnesota Press, 1985.

Bastida-Rodríguez, Patricia.  “Afropolitan in their own way? Writing and self-     identification in Aminatta Forna and Chika Unigwe”. European Journal of   English Studies, 21:2, 129-143. MLA International Bibliography, DOI:   10.1080/13825577.2017.1344469.

Bermudez, Jose L. et al. The Body and the Self. Bradford, 1995.

Britt, Theron. “Law of the Intangible: Desegregation, Diversity, and the       Individual.” College Literature, vol. 35 no. 3, 2008, pp. 142-157. Project MUSE,   DOI:10.1353/lit.0.0003.

Borst, Julia. “"To Be Black in a 'White’ Country"—On the Ambivalence of the   Diasporic Experience in César A. Mba Abogo’s: El porteador de Marlow.   Canción negra sin color (2007).” Research in African Literatures, vol. 48 no. 3,   2017, pp. 33-54.

Cartledge, Paul. The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others. Oxford: Oxford   University Press, 1993.

Candy, P. C. Self-direction for lifelong learning: A comprehensive guide to   theory and practice. Educational Resources Information Center. San   Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1991. ERIC, https://eric.ed.gov/?   id=ED353470.

“Chapter 4: Self”. The Book of Life. The Book of Life. Web.     http://www.thebookoflife.org/category/self/. Accessed 27 January, 2018.

Cooper, Michael. They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on   Japan, 1543-1640. University of California Press, 1982.

Dennett, Daniel C. Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays On Mind And     Psychology. MIT Press, 1977.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Boston, 1845.

Elliott, Anthony. Concepts of the Self, 3rd ed. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2014.

Elster, Jon. The Multiple Self. Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or    Gustavus Vassa, The African; Written By Himself. Published by Author, 1789.

Erikson, Erik H. Identity: Youth and Crisis. W. W. Norton Company, 1968.

Eschebach, Insa and Georg Felix Harsch. “Soil, Ashes, Commemoration:   Processes of Sacralization at the Ravensbrück Former Concentration Camp.”   History & Memory: Studies in Representations of the Past, vol. 23, no. 1, 2011,   pp. 131-156. MLA International Bibliography, DOI: 10.2979/histmemo.23.1.131.

Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology Of The Human       Sciences. Vintage, 1994.

Gooptu, Nandini. “New Spirituality, Politics of Self-Empowerment, Citizenship, and Democracy in Contemporary India.” Modern Asian Studies, vol. 50, no. 3, May 2016, pp. 934-974. EBSCOhost, DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X14000171.

Harter, S. “The construction of the self: A Developmental Perspective.” PsycNET: Distinguished contributions in psychology New York: Guilford Press, 1999. PsycNET, http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-02441-000.

Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the State of Virginia. Richard and Hall, 1785.

Lafont, Anne. “How Skin Color Became a Racial Marker: Art Historical   Perspectives on Race.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 51 no. 1, 2017, pp.   89-113. Project MUSE, DOI:10.1353/ecs.2017.0048. 

“Life of James Mars, a Slave born and sold in Connecticut”. Google Books.     Googlebooks.com.   https://books.google.com/books/about/Life_of_James_Mars.html?   id=oz_JQwAACAAJ. Accessed 24 February, 2018.

Leder, Drew. The Absent Body. University of Chicago Press,1990. Mars, James. Life of James Mars, a Slave born and sold in Connecticut. Lockwood & Company, 1868.

Neisser, Ulric. The Conceptual Self in Context: Culture Experience Self Understanding. New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge. University of Chicago Press, 1958.

Pryor, Elizabeth S. “The Etymology of Nigger: Resistance, Language, and the Politics of Freedom in the Antebellum North.” Journal of the Early Republic, vol. 36 no. 2, 2016, pp. 203-245. Project MUSE, DOI:10.1353/jer.2016.0028.

Quine, William V. O. Word and Object. Technology Press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1960.

“Richard Wright (Author).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Feb. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wright_(author). Last accessed 20 Feb. 2018.

Rosenblatt, Daniel. "Indigenizing the City and the Future of Maori Culture: The Construction of Community in Auckland as Representation, Experience, and Self-Making." American Ethnologist, vol. 38, no. 3, Aug. 2011, pp. 411-429. MLA International Bibliography, DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1425.2011.01314.x

Russell, John G. "Replicating the White Self and Other: Skin Color, Racelessness, Gynoids, and the Construction of Whiteness in Japan." Japanese Studies, vol. 37, no. 1, May 2017, pp. 23-48. MLA International Bibliography, DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2017.1297183.

“Self.” Britannica Academic, 2018, Encyclopedia Britannica Online Academic Edition, academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/search/dictionary?query=self&includeLevelThree=1&page=1. Accessed January 27, 2018.

“Self, Definition of self in English by Oxford Dictionaries.” Oxford English Dictionaries, 2018, Oxford Dictionaries, en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/self. Accessed January 27th, 2018.

“Self.” Dictionary.com, 2018. Dictionary.com, www.dictionary.com/browse/self?s=t. Accessed January 27, 2018.

Self, Robert O. American Babylon: race and the struggle for postwar Oakland. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhq2x.

“Self”. Self Magazine. Facebook.com. Web, https://www.facebook.com/SelfMagazine/. Accessed 27 January, 2018.

“Self” Urban Dictionary. Urban Dictionary.com. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=self. Accessed 27 January, 2018.

“Self.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self. Accessed January 27, 2018.

Walcott, Derek. In a Green Night: Poems 1948–1960. Jonathan Cape, 1962.

Wilhite, Keith. “'A Yearning for a Kind of Consciousness’: Black Boy and the Aesthetic Solution.” Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism, vol. 22, no. 1, Apr. 1999, pp. 103-120. MLA International Bibliography, DOI:10.1080/01440359908586663.

Wright, Richard. Black Boy (American Hunger): A Record of Childhood and Youth. Harper & Brothers, 1945.

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About the primary sources...

Novels? Historical Accounts? Poems? Plays? Letters? Who wrote them, what do these authors look like? What do their book covers look like, etc.? What might they be about and how do they enrich your understanding of your keyword?

The primary documents references in the articles that were previously found within my research were mostly historical accounts of slaves or African American experiences within America, a collection of reports, and a book of original poems. The authors of most of the literary texts were African American, most likely because my keyword “self” has a lot to do with perception of your physical and mental, which is effected by the color of your skin or origin. The book covers of many of the literary texts are pretty simple, most likely because of the time in which these texts were published, when color and imagery was often to hard or too expensive to put on book covers and reprint. The texts referenced are about first hand accounts of the institution of slavery or experiences in the Antebellum period of America, as well as experiences of race, ethnicity, and culture in modern America.

These literary works enrich my understanding of my keyword “self” through the perspectives of others and their experiences with the idea of self, as well as understanding the complications of finding yourself and your identity by race, how others view and perceive your race, and other races, and reactions that play out through these narratives and experiences.

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Primary sources...

 JSTOR/ProjMUSE

“Notes on the state of Virginia” by Thomas Jefferson, referenced in “How Skin Color Became a Racial Marker: Art Historical Perspectives on Race” by Anne Lafont

Summmary: A compilation of data by Jefferson about the state's natural resources and economy, and his vigorous argument about the nature of the good society, which he believed was incarnated by Virginia. He expressed his beliefs in the separation of church and state, constitutional government, checks and balances, and individual liberty. He wrote extensively about slavery, the problems of miscegenation, and his belief that whites and blacks could not live together in a free society.

Citation: Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the State of Virginia. Richard and Hall, 1785.

“Life of James Mars: A Slave Born and Sold in Connecticut” by James Mars, referenced in “The Etymology of Nigger: Resistance, Language, and the Politics of Freedom in the Antebellum North” by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor

Summary: The life story of a man, born into slavery in the state of Connecticut, who refused to follow his master to Virginia and smuggled his way to freedom.

Citation: Mars, James. Life of James Mars, a Slave born and sold in Connecticut. Lockwood & Company, 1868.

“In a Green Night. Poems 1948–1960” by Derek Walcott, referenced in “'To Be Black in a 'White’ Country’: On the Ambivalence of the Diasporic Experience in César A. Mba Abogo’s El porteador de Marlow: Canción negra sin color (2007)” by Julia Borst

Summary: A collection of original poems written by Derek Walcott.

Citation:  Walcott, Derek. In a Green Night: Poems 1948–1960. Jonathan Cape, 1962.

Author: James Mars

Born a slave in Canaan, Connecticut, James Mars (1790-1880), eventually gained his freedom due to the gradual emancipation law of Connecticut. James Mars was an inspirational figure in the black community who helped as a prominent civic leader in the Northeast. His autobiography, Life of James Mars: A Slave Born and Sold in Connecticut, was first published in 1864.

Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books/about/Life_of_James_Mars.html?id=oz_JQwAACAAJ.

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Primary sources...

MLAIB

“Black Boy (American Hunger): A Record of Childhood and Youth” by Richard Wright, referenced from ““A yearning for a kind of consciousness”: Black boy and the aesthetic solution” by Keith Wilhite

Summary: Richard Wright's powerful account of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. It is at once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment—a poignant and disturbing record of social injustice and human suffering.

Citation: Wright, Richard. Black Boy (American Hunger): A Record of Childhood and Youth. Harper & Brothers, 1945.

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself, referenced from “Afropolitan in Their Own Way? Writing and Self-Identification in Aminatta Forna and Chika Unigwe” by Patricia Bastida-Rodríguez

Summary: The book describes Equiano's time spent in enslavement, and documents his attempts at becoming an independent man through his study of the Bible, and his eventual success in gaining his own freedom and in business thereafter.

Citation: Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself. Published by Author, 1789.

“They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543-1640″ by Michael Cooper, referenced from “Replicating the White Self and Other: Skin Color, Racelessness, Gynoids, and the Construction of Whiteness in Japan” by Jonh G. Russell

Summary: This anthology is composed of selections from the writings of more than 30 Europeans who visited Japan during the so-called 'Christian century'.

Citation: Cooper, Michael. They Came to Japan: An Anthology of European Reports on Japan, 1543-1640. University of California Press, 1982.

Author: Richard Wright

Richard Nathaniel Wright (September 4, 1908 – November 28, 1960) was an American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African Americans during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. Literary critics believe his work helped change race relations in the United States in the mid-20th century. Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Carl Van Vechten [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Citation: “Richard Wright (Author).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Feb. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wright_(author). Last accessed 20 Feb. 2018.

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What I (and hopefully you) have learned...

Books vs. Articles

As for as books are concerned, most of the time you’ll often find narrative or first hand accounts, or secondary sources written about those accounts, interpretations, as well as the different ways in people view themselves, as a physical self, their mental self, and even sometimes a metaphysical self, through perspectives of race, ethnicity, gender and orientation.

In articles, much of the content will be pertaining to the psychology of self, the inner self, human self, also on perspective but most written for medical purposes. However, all information relating to your keyword or future keywords can be found in all kinds of articles and is extremely helpful to research and or curiosity. 

Takeaways...

There are many things you, and I, can take away from my research so far, specifically how your keyword(s) plus a word like “race” or “ethnicity” can extremely aid in and expand your search for specific books or articles. Even though a book or article may not have exactly what you’re looking for, checking the bibliography section of the books or article, which can put you in the right direction by other books or articles/ secondary sources, as well as primary documents and literary texts (narratives, diaries, letters, journal(s) and journal articles). Also, the abstracts and book covers of books, or articles can be very useful in deciding whether or not the book or article can be used for your research from the get go. 

Using ILL...

When using Interlibrary Loan (Lending Library), it is a great resource for finding and retrieving useful sources that aren’t accessible through your university library, or public libraries, or databases. Be sure you have the title, author name, specific edition and matching publication date, as well as the correct DOI number. Having all of this information on hand and including it in your submission will greatly speed of the locating, sending, and receiving processes. ILL doesn’t often send or have the ability to lend rare materiel, however, it is great, fairly quick, and extensive otherwise.

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InterLibrary Loan

Book: Concepts of the Self by Anthony Elliott

Summary: This book goes in depth into the different parts of the “self”, concentrates mainly on the work of social theorists and cultural analysts who have attempted to place the self in relation to psychological processes, social contexts, and historical perspectives, as well as connecting debates about the self directly to identity politics, the sociology of personal relationships and intimacy, and the politics of sexuality. This book also focuses heavily on cultural and political issues, and breaks new ground in integrating interdisciplinary perspectives. In analysing debates about the self, Elliott draws extensively on contemporary social and cultural theory. Among the traditions of thought discussed are symbolic interactionism; modern sociology; post-structuralist thought; feminist and queer theory; psychoanalysis; and postmodernism. Elliott reviews core concepts of the self through an analysis of several connected themes: the complex relation between self and society; the importance of the interpreting self in social life; the reshaping of processes of self-formation; and, the changing character of identity politics by introducing compelling, contemporary material on the globalization of the self.

Article: The Greeks: The Portrait of Self and Others by Paul Cartledge

Summary: This article provides an original and challenging answer to the question: 'Who were the Classical Greeks?' Paul Cartledge examines the Greeks and their achievements in terms of their own self-image, mainly as it was presented by the supposedly objective historians: Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon. Many of our modern concepts as we understand them were invented by the Greeks: for example, democracy, theatre, philosophy, and history. Yet despite being our cultural ancestors in many ways, their legacy remains rooted in myth and the mental and material contexts of many of their achievements are deeply alien to our own ways of thinking and acting. The Greeks aims to explore in depth how the dominant group (adult, male, citizen) attempted, with limited success, to define themselves unambiguously in polar opposition to a whole series of 'Others' - non-Greeks, women, non-citizens, slaves and gods.

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Ten relevant titles...

Found in Bibliographies/works cited/references of book….

1. Identity: Youth and Crisis by Erik H. Erikson

Found In Bell Library: No

Citation: Erikson, Erik .H. Identity: Youth and Crisis. W. W. Norton Company, 1968.

2. The Order Of Things : An Archaeology Of The Human Sciences by Michel Foucault

Found In Bell Library: Yes

Citation: Foucault, Michel. The Order Of Things : An Archaeology Of The Human Sciences. Vintage, 1994.

3. Brainstorms : Philosophical Essays On Mind And Psychology by Daniel C. Dennett 

Found In Bell Library: Yes

Citation: Dennett, Daniel C. Brainstorms : Philosophical Essays On Mind And Psychology. MIT Press, 1977.

4. Personal Knowledge by Michael Polanyi

Found In Bell Library: Yes

Citation: Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge. University of Chicago Press, 1958.

5. Word and Object by William V. O. Quine

Found In Bell Library: Yes

Citation: Quine, William V. O. Word and Object. Technology Press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1960.

6. Postures of the Mind Essays on Mind and Morals by Annette Baier

Found In Bell Library: No

Citation: Baier, Annette. Postures of the Mind Essays on Mind and Morals. University of Minnesota Press, 1985.

7. The Body and the Self by Jose L. Bermudez, edited by Anthony J. Marcel and Naomi Eilan

Found In Bell Library: No

Citation: Bermudez, Jose L. et al. The Body and the Self. Bradford, 1995.

8. The Multiple Self by Jon Elster

Found In Bell Library: No

Citation: Elster, Jon. The Multiple Self. Cambridge University Press, 1986.

9. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845) by Frederick Douglass

Found In Bell Library: Yes

Citation: Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Boston, 1845.

10. The Absent Body by Drew Leder

Found in Bell Library: No

Citation: Leder, Drew. The Absent Body. University of Chicago Press,1990. 

Total books found in Bell Library on list: 5

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Visiting the stacks... Texas A&M University Corpus Christi

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Using your resources...

Book found at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi

Keyword(s): Self; concept; sense; learn; knowledge

The Conceptual Self in Context: Culture Experience Self Understanding by Ulric Neisser

For years, thinkers have debated the meaning and origin of the self-concept. Among contested issues are how people in different cultures can have sharply different concepts of self, what can be known about the self-concepts of depressives and schizophrenics, how meditation can affect the sense of self, and if there is an inner "self of selves," as James once suggested. In this collection, a prestigious group of psychologists, anthropologists, and philosophers addresses these topics and presents some surprising answers. Organized around Ulric Neisser's cognitive theory of self-knowledge, it goes beyond The Perceived Self and The Remembering Self to deal with some of the oldest--as well as some of the newest--psychological and philosophical questions surrounding the concept of self.