Abstract

This essay draws upon Dante and St. Catherine of Siena to flesh out the Foucauldian concept of counter-conduct. Dante and Catherine occupy an important place in early modern history, challenging the designs of medieval pastoral power by embodying a new, secular mixture of the active and the contemplative life. This essay, with Foucault as a guide, suggests that they offer us another way to be modern, a path of self-cultivation surpassing modern norms for nature, the self, and the project of rational knowledge.