Episode 14: "Who am I?"

We know more about ourselves than ever before, we can get a DNA sample to 23 and me and discover extensive information about our biological family and our own physical characteristics. We can develop an online persona for a cluster of social media platforms and present ourselves any way we want. But how can we know who we really are?

Dr Christopher Watkin is an Associate Professor in French Studies at Monash University, where he holds an ARC Future Fellowship. Chris writes books and journal articles, teaches, makes YouTube videos and is the author of the recent Australian Christian Book of the Year Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture.

References:

• A Secular Age by Charles Taylor
• The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman
• Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life by Robert Bellah
• The First and Second Treatises of Government by John Locke
• The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke by C. B. McPherson
• Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism by Alain Badiou
• Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism by Larry Siedentop
• Confessions by St Augustine
• Oneself as Another by Paul Ricoeur
• Psalm 139

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