Recommendations based on "Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology"

In Black Sun, Julia Kristeva addresses the subject of melancholia, examining this phenomenon in the context of art, literature, philosophy, the history of religion and culture, as well as psychoanalysis. She describes the depressive as one who perceives the sense of self as a crucial pursuit and a nearly unattainable goal and explains how the love of a lost identity of attachment lies at the very core of depression's dark heart.In her discussion she analyzes Holbein's controversial 1522 painting "The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb," and has revealing comments on the works of Marguerite Duras, Dostoyevsky and Nerval. Black Sun takes the view that depression is a discourse with a language to be learned, rather than strictly a pathology to be treated.

Donald Kalsched explores the interior world of dream and fantasy images encountered in therapy with people who have suffered unbearable life experiences. He shows how, in an ironical twist of psychical life, the very images which are generated to defend the self can become malevolent and destructive, resulting in further trauma for the person. Why and how this happens are the questions the book sets out to answer.Drawing on detailed clinical material, the author gives special attention to the problems of addiction and psychosomatic disorder, as well as the broad topic of dissociation and its treatment. By focusing on the archaic and primitive defenses of the self he connects Jungian theory and practice with contemporary object relations theory and dissociation theory. At the same time, he shows how a Jungian understanding of the universal images of myth and folklore can illuminate treatment of the traumatised patient.Trauma is about the rupture of those developmental transitions that make life worth living. Donald Kalsched sees this as a spiritual problem as well as a psychological one and in The Inner World of Trauma he provides a compelling insight into how an inner self-care system tries to save the personal spirit.

Written three years before his death, The Undiscovered Self combines acuity with concision in masterly fashion and is Jung at his very best. Offering clear and crisp insights into some of his major theories, such as the duality of human nature, the unconscious, human instinct and spirituality, Jung warns against the threats of totalitarianism and political and social propaganda to the free-thinking individual. As timely now as when it was first written, Jung's vision is a salutary reminder of why we should not become passive members of the herd.With a new foreword by Sonu Shamdasani.

From Kirkus Reviews ( Jolande Jacobi first met Carl Jung on a social occasion when she was thirty-eight; she then experienced a dream which she described to him, and he replied, ""Now you are caught, now you can't get away."" Dr. Jacobi's studies had been curtailed by marriage at nineteen; Jung insisted that she get her doctorate even though she was physically in danger in pre-World War II Vienna--a danger that became imminent for her husband and sons in Hungary, but saw her to safety in Switzerland, where her life today has, according to David Holt, an ""extraordinarily vivid quality, wounded yet inviolate."" This exposition of Jung's concept of individuation has importance, she feels, for present survival and for shaping the it deals with social, ethical, and religious problems through a growing self-awareness of the individual and society. The ""individuation process"" can be experienced in natural (occurring almost autonomously) or artificial form (aided for instance by analysis, developed by definite methods, and consciously experienced). Dr. Jacobi describes the two main phases of the transformation with the ""change of dominance"" in the second half; the stages of individuation; the relation of ego and Self; the finding of the ""individual way"" (what is needed is a vocation); conscious realization, the religious factor. A lucid presentation of a major if not dominant theorist which will appeal to a special, predisposed audience.

Vasari's Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects are and always have been central texts for the study of the Italian Renaissance. They can and should be read in many ways. Since their publication in the mid-sixteenth century, they have been a source of both information and pleasure. Their immediacy after more than four hundred years is a measure of Vasari's success. He wished the artists of his day, himself included, to be famous. He made the association of artistry and genius, of renaissance and the arts so familiar that they now seem inevitable. In this book Patricia Rubin argues that both the inevitability and the immediacy should be questioned. To read Vasari without historical perspective results in a limited and distorted view of The Lives.Rubin shows that Vasari had distinct ideas about the nature of his task as a biographer, about the importance of interpretation, judgment, and example - about the historian's art. Vasari's principles and practices as a writer are examined here, as are their sources in Vasari's experiences as an artist.

In this sequel to The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction, the brilliantly original French thinker who died in 1984 gives an analysis of how the ancient Greeks perceived sexuality.Throughout The Use of Pleasure Foucault analyzes an irresistible array of ancient Greek texts on eroticism as he tries to answer basic questions: How in the West did sexual experience become a moral issue? And why were other appetites of the body, such as hunger, and collective concerns, such as civic duty, not subjected to the numberless rules and regulations and judgments that have defined, if not confined, sexual behavior?

A portable edition of the famous Red Book text and essay. The Red Book, published to wide acclaim in 2009, contains the nucleus of C. G. Jung’s later works. It was here that he developed his principal theories of the archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the process of individuation that would transform psychotherapy from treatment of the sick into a means for the higher development of the personality. As Sara Corbett wrote in the New York Times, “The creation of one of modern history’s true visionaries, The Red Book is a singular work, outside of categorization. As an inquiry into what it means to be human, it transcends the history of psychoanalysis and underscores Jung’s place among revolutionary thinkers like Marx, Orwell and, of course, Freud.” The Red Book: A Reader’s Edition features Sonu Shamdasani’s introductory essay and the full translation of Jung’s vital work in one volume.

The definitive history of psychiatry’s origins“A truly great book.” —Dr. Jordan PetersonThe Discovery of the Unconscious is a monumental, integrated view of humanity’s search for an understanding of the inner reaches of the mind. In an account that is both exhaustive and exciting, distinguished psychiatrist and author Henri Ellenberger demonstrates the long chain of development—through the exorcists, magnetists, and hypnotists—that led to the fruition of dynamic psychiatry in the psychological systems of Pierre Janet, Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, and Sigmund Freud. Drawing on personal interviews and direct recollections of these scientists, Ellenberger’s analysis ranges from the late 18th century to the end of the 1940s.Hailed as a classic when it was originally published in 1970, The Discovery of the Unconscious remains one of the most definitive and thoroughly researched accounts of the early history of psychiatry.

A comprehensive overview of Slavoj Zizek's thought, including all of his published works to date. Provides a solid basis in the work of an engaging thinker and teacher whose ideas will continue to inform philosophical, psychological, political, and cultural discourses well into the future Identifies the major currents in Zizek's thought, discussing all of his works and providing a background in continental philosophy and psychoanalytic theory necessary to its understanding Explores Zizek's growing popularity through his engagement in current events, politics, and cultural studies Pertains to a variety of fields, including contemporary philosophy, psychology, cultural studies, sociology, political science, esthetics, literary theory, film theory, and theology

Mikhail Bakhtin was one of the twentieth century's most influential literary theorists. This accessible introduction to his thought begins with the questions 'Why Bakhtin?' and 'Who was Bakhtin?', before dealing in detail with his ideas on authorship and subjecthood, language, dialogism, heteroglossia and the novel, the chronotope, and the carnivalesque. True to their dialogic spirit, these ideas are presented not as a fixed body of knowledge, but rather as living and evolving entities, as ways of approaching not only the most persistent questions of language and literature, but also issues that are relevant across the full range of Humanities disciplines. Bakhtin emerges in the process as a key thinker for the Humanities in the twenty-first century.