Fowler's "Archaeology Of Personhood" Summary And A

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Fowler's "Archaeology of Personhood" Summary and Analysis (This is for a history class.) In Chris Fowler's "The Archaeology of Personhood", Fowler determines, from an anthropological point-of-view, the definition of a "person" and a person's ties to society. He defines a person as a word "used to refer to any entity, human or otherwise, which may be conceptualized and treated as a person" (7). Personhood consists of three modes: individuality and indivisibility, individuals, and dividuals and dividuality. The dividual personhood is like the collective unconscious, coined by psychiatrist Carl Jung, in which memories and experiences are inherited from person to person. An individual has a mind, body, and soul--all of which are made up of multiple elements. Fowler analyzes how the term "individual" has changed from medieval times to the post-medieval period, also known as the Renaissance. During the medieval times, the "individual" was with God and paintings had little perspective. In the post-medieval era, paintings developed perspective, which emphasized the individual. The appearances of diaries, collections, scientific research, and other such components of the "technology of the self" (13) illustrates the immortalization of the self. Fowler's definitions of "person" are constantly shifting, stating that "definitions will be revised, embellished and replaced throughout this book as relationships between personhood and context become more apparent, and spring from my interpretation of the debate over personhood" (9). Even though we are individuals in societies, we must build relationships with other so we may not "lose [ourselves] in experiences and activities"
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