Foucault, Douglass, Fanon, and Scotus in Dialogue: On Social Construction and Freedom (New Approaches to Religion and Power)

Nielsen offers a dialogue with Foucault, Frederick Douglass, Frantz Fanon and the Augustinian-Franciscan tradition, investigating the relation between social construction and freedom and proposing an historically friendly, ethically sensitive, and religico-philosophical model for human being and existence in a shared pluralistic world. Through examining Douglass's and Fanon's concrete experiences of oppression, Cynthia R. Nielsen demonstrates the empirical validity of Foucault's theoretical analyses concerning power, resistance, and subject-formation. Going beyond merely confirming Foucault's insights, Douglass and Fanon expand, strengthen, and offer correctives to the emancipatory dimensions of Foucault's project. Unlike Foucault, Douglass and Fanon were not hesitant to make transhistorical judgments condemning slavery and colonization. Foucault's reticence here signals a weakness in his account of human being. This weakness sets him at cross-purposes not only with Scotus, but also with Douglass and Fanon. Scotus's anthropology provides a basis for transhistorical moral critique; thus he is a valuable dialogue partner for those concerned about social justice and human flourishing Front Matter....Pages i-xv Themes and Their Variations: Harmonizing Humans as Socially Constructed and Free?....Pages 1-16 Foucault and Subjectivities....Pages 17-43 Frederick Douglass on Power Relations and Resistance “From Below”....Pages 45-71 Fanon on Decolonizing Colonized Subjectivities and the Quest for an Historically Attuned Symphonic Humanism....Pages 73-102 Duns Scotus and Multidimensional Freedom....Pages 103-135 Recapitulation: Humans as Socially Constructed and Free, an Ongoing Improvisation....Pages 137-148 Back Matter....Pages 149-212