This article examines the issues that are at stake in the current resurgence of interest in the subject of habit. We focus on the role that habit has played in conceptions of the relations between body and society, and the respects in which such conceptions have been implicated in processes of governance. We argue that habit has typically constituted a point of leverage for regulatory practices that seek to effect some realignment of the relations between different components of personhood – (...) will, character, memory and instinct, for example – in order to bring about a specific end. In reviewing its functioning in this regard across a range of modern disciplines – philosophy, psychology, sociology – we explore the tensions between its use and interpretation in different lineages: in particular, the Cartesian–Kantian/ravaisson–bergson–deleuze lineages. The article then identifies how these questions are addressed across the contributions collected in this special issue. (shrink)

This article ponders the questions of why so many literary scholars want to bring literary and economic issues together now, and why it seems so difficult to establish a genuinely cross-disciplinary con-versation.1 Offering two examples of approaches to the intersec-tion of literary and economic issues that privilege methodology over themes, history, or theory—a very brief genealogy of the concept of a national economy and an equally brief analysis of derivatives—the article calls for an ongoing reflection on whether literary and cultural (...) scholars have the right tools for the job and, conversely, the right job for our tools. (shrink)

Using the Online Library of Liberty database, which is sponsored by the Liberty Fund, I explore the role played by the word habit in the history of classical liberalism. At the same time, I interrogate the usefulness of the Search function, the digital finding tool provided by the website. Simultaneously a survey of the changing uses of habit and a meditation on our scholarly research habits, this article investigates the intersections between ideas about free agency and habitual behaviors. It also (...) tests the possibilities and limitations of digital archives, the increasing availability of which threatens to make conventional scholarly habits obsolete. (shrink)