Subjectivity in the essay: The capacity to be a subject and the (im)possible relationships between writer and text

While other studies have critiqued theories of subjectivity that hinge on concepts of an essentialized or socially constructed self, this project is the first to study both concepts of the self in relation to the question of how subjectivity is possible in the essay. Additionally, this project is the first to demonstrate that these theories of subjectivity are problematic because of the operation of objectification: in both, subjectivity is conceived of in terms of a subject-object relation, where the subject (the writer) is articulated as a fairly stable entity that exists apart from, acts on, and is acted on by everything else.; Generally, subjectivity in the essay is often talked about in creative nonfiction scholarship (and in essays) as the writer "voiced" on the page. This concept of subjectivity, which I analyze in Chapter 1, is articulated in terms of an essential self that is stripped of any limiting or oppressive social influences and is transparently reflected through language.; Though essays and essay scholarship tend to align with the concept of an essentialized self reflected or voiced on the page, composition scholarship on discourse communities and contact zones describes a different version of subjectivity in writing. In this version, investigated in Chapter 2, the self is "constructed" in the text. Specifically, the text becomes a kind of contact zone, where the writer brings into contact the conflicting practices and conventions of the various discourse communities of which s/he is a member and consciously decides which to accept and which to reject.; Using Foucault's theory of subjectivity, particularly in "Self Writing," this project will introduce for the first time a third possibility for how subjectivity works in the essay. This version, described in Chapter 3, will point us toward a concept of subjectivity in the essay that takes seriously the operation (and practices) of subjection---the ways in which writers subject themselves to writing practices. Consequently, the subject is not made present in the text via the reflection of the writer's essence or via his/her participation in discourse communities, but by subjection to larger discourses at work, via particular self-writing practices.