As Lester Faigley explains, the primary conception
of the subject
today in rhet/comp is modernist, because the influence of
postmodern theory has been minimal.
Underlying conceptions of the subject (which are often conflated)
include:
- modernist conceptions
- the Enlightenment subject: a rational, coherent self
"capable of
knowing oneself and the world" (Faigley 16)
- a Romanticist subject who is self-expressive
- postmodern conception
- "the postmodern 'free' individual of consumer capitalism:
one who can
change indentities at will because identities are acquired by
what one
consumes" (Faigley 16)
what would a truly postmodern
subject
look like?
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