Imagining Selves: the Politics of Representation, Film Narratives and Adult Education

This book examines a number of theoretical positions proposed by adult educators in relation to five poststructural perspectives. The analysis begins with a Lacanian interpretation of subjectivity in the complexities of female bonding with the Other, then follows with Foucault’s concepts of knowledge and power, Derrida’s perspective on differance, Baudrillard’s thesis on simulacra, and closes with Lyotard’s philosophy on the postmodern condition. The study argues that objects of knowledge are locally and historically specific, and that they become available for human understanding only within certain language games, paradigms, and discursive formations. Further, the study investigates the central role film narratives play in the process of socialization while questioning simultaneously, the ideological processes forming our subjectivities.