Books about Subjectivity from Amazon.com

Exposing the inadequacies of old conceptions of static cultures and detached observers, the book argues instead for social science to acknowledge and celebrate diversity, narrative, emotion, and subjectivity..
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The definitive edition of Foucault's articles, interviews, and seminars

Few philosophers have had as strong an influence on the twentieth century as Michel Foucault His work has affected the teaching of any number of disciplines and remains, twenty years after his death, critically important. This newly available edition is drawn from the complete collection of all of Foucault's courses, articles, and interviews, and brings his most important work to a new generation of readers.

Ethics (edited by Paul Rabinow) contains the summaries of Foucault's renowned courses at the Collège de France, paired with key writings and interviews on friendship, sexuality, and the care of the self and others..
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For centuries, medicine aimed to treat abnormalities But today normality itself is open to medical modification. Equipped with a new molecular understanding of bodies and minds, and new techniques for manipulating basic life processes at the level of molecules, cells, and genes, medicine now seeks to manage human vital processes. The Politics of Life Itself offers a much-needed examination of recent developments in the life sciences and biomedicine that have led to the widespread politicization of medicine, human life, and biotechnology.

Avoiding the hype of popular science and the pessimism of most social science, Nikolas Rose analyzes contemporary molecular biopolitics, examining developments in genomics, neuroscience, pharmacology, and psychopharmacology and the ways they have affected racial politics, crime control, and psychiatry. Rose analyzes the transformation of biomedicine from the practice of healing to the government of life; the new emphasis on treating disease susceptibilities rather than disease; the shift in our understanding of the patient; the emergence of new forms of medical activism; the rise of biocapital; and the mutations in biopower. He concludes that these developments have profound consequences for who we think we are, and who we want to be.

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Countering the call by some "pro-Lacanians" for an end to the exegesis of Lacan's work--and the dismissal by "anti-Lacanians" of Lacan as impossibly impenetrable--Subjectivity and Otherness argues for Lacan as a "paradoxically systematic" thinker, and for the necessity of a close analysis of his texts. Lorenzo Chiesa examines, from a philosophical perspective, the evolution of the concept of subjectivity in Lacan's work, carrying out a detailed reading of the Lacanian subject in its necessary relation to otherness according to Lacan's orders of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real.

Chiesa emphasizes the continuity underlying apparently incompatible phases of Lacan's examination of the subject, describing Lacan's theory as a consistent philosophical system--but one that is constantly revised and therefore problematic. Chiesa analyzes each "old" theory of the subject within the framework of a "new" elaboration and reassesses its fundamental tenets from the perspective of a general psychoanalytic discourse that becomes increasingly complex. From the 1960s on, writes Chiesa, the Lacanian subject amounts to an irreducible lack that must be actively confronted and assumed; this "subjectivized lack," Chiesa argues further, offers an escape from the contemporary impasse between the "death of the subject" alleged by postmodernism and a return to a traditional "substantialist" notion of the subject. An original treatment of psychoanalytic issues, Subjectivity and Otherness fills a significant gap in the existing literature on Lacan, taking seriously the need for a philosophical investigation of Lacanian concepts..
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This book aims to introduce students to the area of social science theory and research that has come to be known as social constructionism Using a variety of examples from everyday experience and from existing research in areas such as personality, sexuality and health, the basic theoretical assumptions of social constructionism are clearly explained. Key debates, such as the nature and status of knowledge, truth, reality and the self are given in-depth analysis in an accessible style. The theoretical and practical issues relevant to social constructionist research are illustrated with examples from real empirical studies, and the different approaches to social constructionist research are spelled out.
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Achille Mbembe is one of the most brilliant theorists of postcolonial studies writing today. In On the Postcolony he profoundly renews our understanding of power and subjectivity in Africa. In a series of provocative essays, Mbembe contests diehard Africanist and nativist perspectives as well as some of the key assumptions of postcolonial theory.
This thought-provoking and groundbreaking collection of essays--his first book to be published in English--develops and extends debates first ignited by his well-known 1992 article "Provisional Notes on the Postcolony," in which he developed his notion of the "banality of power" in contemporary Africa. Mbembe reinterprets the meanings of death, utopia, and the divine libido as part of the new theoretical perspectives he offers on the constitution of power. He works with the complex registers of bodily subjectivity -- violence, wonder, and laughter -- to profoundly contest categories of oppression and resistance, autonomy and subjection, and state and civil society that marked the social theory of the late twentieth century.
This provocative book will surely attract attention with its signal contribution to the rich interdisciplinary arena of scholarship on colonial and postcolonial discourse, history, anthropology, philosophy, political science, psychoanalysis, and literary criticism..
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In Photo Impressionism and the Subjective Image the authors show how photographs can be used to alter physical reality to express the photographer's personal response to specific subject matter. The "impressionist" photographer deliberately abandons physical exactitude to convey the reality of feelings more effectively.

This book explains how to venture into the non-literal world of photography to create and record impressions that express emotion, feelings and spirit.

The first part of the book includes instructional topics such as:

• Multiple exposures
• Montages
• Subtle and vibrant colors
• Selective focus, exposure and speed
• Creative image transfer techniques
• Trends and film choices.

The second part is a gallery of photographs taken around the world with extensive captions that explain the authors' personal approaches to photography.

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An Invitation to Social Construction is an elegant overview of social constructionism from a major figure in the movement, that is at once panoptic and accessible as an introductory text. In this landmark work , author Kenneth Gergen charts the background to the social constructionist movement and outlines the major debates, topics and issues in a way that is at once profound yet highly readable. It is an interdisciplinary tour de force that will influence the development of the field for years to come. The book is essential reading for all students and academics interested in social constructionism and contemporary issues and debates across the social sciences..
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In Jesus in Our Wombs, Rebecca J. Lester takes us behind the walls of a Roman Catholic convent in central Mexico to explore the lives, training, and experiences of a group of postulants--young women in the first stage of religious training as nuns. Lester, who conducted eighteen months of fieldwork in the convent, provides a rich ethnography of these young women's journeys as they wrestle with doubts, fears, ambitions, and setbacks in their struggle to follow what they believe to be the will of God. Gracefully written, finely textured, and theoretically rigorous, this book considers how these aspiring nuns learn to experience God by cultivating an altered experience of their own female bodies, a transformation they view as a political stance against modernity.
Lester explains that the Postulants work toward what they see as an "authentic" femininity--one that has been eclipsed by the values of modern society. The outcome of this process has political as well as personal consequences. The Sisters learn to understand their very intimate experiences of "the Call"--and their choices in answering it--as politically relevant declarations of self. Readers become intimately acquainted with the personalities, family backgrounds, friendships, and aspirations of the Postulants as Lester relates the practices and experiences of their daily lives. Combining compassionate, engaged ethnography with an incisive and provocative theoretical analysis of embodied selves, Jesus in Our Wombs delivers a profound analysis of what Lester calls the convent's "technology of embodiment" on multiple levels--from the phenomenological to the political..
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