Book Description
Introduces the embracing world-concept long sought by scientists, mystics, and sages: an Integral Theory of Everything
• Explains how modern science has rediscovered the Akashic Field of perennial philosophy
• Reveals how the universe stores a record of all that is happening and has ever happened on Earth and throughout the cosmos
• Explores the origins, role, and future of life and consciousness in the universe
Mystics and sages have long maintained that there exists an interconnecting cosmic field at the roots of reality that conserves and conveys information, a field known as the Akashic record. Recent discoveries in the new field of vacuum physics now show that this Akashic field is real and has its equivalent in the zero-point field that underlies space itself. This field consists of a subtle sea of fluctuating energies from which all things arise: atoms and galaxies, stars and planets, living beings, and even consciousness. This zero-point Akashic-field--or “A-field”-- is not only the original source of all things that arise in time and space; it is also the constant and enduring memory of the universe. It holds the record of all that ever happened in life, on Earth, and in the cosmos and relates it to all that is yet to happen.
Scientist and philosopher Ervin Laszlo conveys the essential element of this vision of the “informed universe” in language that is accessible and clear. The informed universe lends credence to our deepest intuitions of the oneness of life and the whole of creation. We discover that, as philosopher William James stated, “we are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
Customer Reviews:
An excellent intro to holistic philosophy.......2007-09-14
A superb book on holistic philosophy. The article by Dr Peter Teiman, "holism and gestaldt"discusses the more philosophical aspects, yet this book looks at holism from the philosophical as well as physics and psychological perspectives.
Dr Peter Teiman
Switzerland
clear, coherent, and concise........2007-06-22
finally, a coherent study of the bridge between the concept of the 'a-field' and the current developments in physics which may support these theories. simple enough to make sense to a non-scientist, but certainly detailed and thorough enough to satisfy an intelligent inquisitor. another excellent work from ervin laszlo.
Revolutionary Thinking.......2007-05-06
Mind-blowing concepts which force us to question our understanding of the "real world."
Technical.......2007-05-06
Not a bad book, but rather technical for my liking. This book is more for the chemist than the alchemist (if you know what I mean). I agree with the reviewer BJ Day, the spiritually esoteric aspects of the Akashic record was not touched upon at all. The closest he came to this, was mentioning how "Native Tribes were able to communicate beyond the range of human eye and ear. At times entire cultures were able to share information among themselves, even though they were not in any known form of contact with each other". Maybe Ervin Laszlo will give more of that in his 2nd edition (May 2007). He has a pretty impressive resume, and a interesting surname.
Why stop at the akashic ?.......2007-05-02
A very great scholarly book but i was a bit dissapointed with the conclusions he reached. he is coming from a scientific background and only very carefully concedes anything that might be labelled spiritualistic. That is fair enough ... keeps us from going off the rails completely but sometimes i wish great scholars wouldn't be so rigid. Sometimes academia gets in the way of other, far more intuitive and (ironically) RATIONAL conclusions. However, he does have the very great virtue of scientific rigour, so that you know if he admits for example telepathy into his discourse, that it must be solid.
He explains how information is transferred instantaneously
during phenomena like the quantum spook 'action at a distance' and telepathy (which he readily admits into his framework), and then poses the question 'how' is the information transferred , given that it must be faster than the speed of light. He also marvels at the level of 'coherence'
between organisms such as ourselves and our envoirnment, and again points to feedback loops and systems theory (covered very well by the way in
fritjof capras 'web of life').
Again the big question is 'how' - how does the information get 'fed back' so quickly on natures broadband, so to speak, in order to maintain such a high level of coherence. This points convincingly to another type of 'connectivity' - not translatory across a surface, but vertically towards a common center (in this case an omnipresent etheric, or common field sustaining and informing the observable world). The idea of the ether raises its head again and, inspite of mitchelson&morley it is very plausable. (incidentally, according to nature magazine, this was revisited in 1986 and traces of etheric wind WERE found, using more sensitive equipment. Where was the huge sensational reaction in the scientific community ? .... this is what i mean about scientific rigidity, or fear of ridicule).
This is how the book starts out, and it is very exciting, and then he goes on to posit the existence of the akashic field (read 'etheric field', vacumn or zero point field) which mystics and spiritual teachers have always maintained.
This field would explain neatly a range of phenomena - just like Lynn
mcTaggarts book 'the field' - in fact, basically, at this point he has just caught up with McTaggart.
I was then hoping he would maybe explore the possibilities of the other fields (or plenums / planes) , just as the esoteric literature tells us - ie. the astral plane, the mental plane, the causal plane etc. but he stops at the akashic. (in fairness, as a scientist he had to).
From there he says it is an information reservoir that 'informs' the physical world of phenomena, storing the information holographically in wave patterns - and that everyones conscious experience is stored there for everyone else to tap into ... (reminded me abit of Carlos Casteneda and the eagle devouring our awareness at the point of death).
The thing that dissapointed me is that he was dismissive of reincarnation and the idea of a soul existing as an entity within the field as 'unlikely' without giving any further explanation. He said that peoples experience of past lives were actually people just tapping into the field of all experience in a manner not unlike radio reception - ie. you pick up on the frequencies that resonate with your own. The consious experiences are recorded there , but there is no trace of the agent who put them there .... abit like the song being immortalised when burned (encoded) onto the cd , but the cd burner (the agent) itself dissapates)...The obvious extension of that analogy is who or what is the listener to the cd's ?
At the end of it all , and after many iterations of universal creation, all of the fields potential gets realised (in the form of these holographic, soliton like, patterns) and this is equivalent to all of the possibilities inherent within the mind of god becoming realised - or god has become self realised through us as his agents (yes ... very like the eagle devouring the awareness at the point of death). All the different possible permutations and combinations , that exist as potential , do eventually get materialised (or 'made observable') and their exact details get recorded in this field. Thus both the being and the becoming are in there (as they would have to be if they exist as potential within the mind of god) ... BUT, here he seems to take the path of the materialist when he seems to suggest that these wave patterns ARE the very mind of god. There is something missing in this picture ... it is like having a cd and no listener.
The esoteric literature would appear to suggest that we may well be thoughts in the mind of god, and that we are exactly as immortal as this gods mind is - no less. We don the clothes of many etheric planes (giving us for example a mental body and an astral body as well as the outward physical body), but we remain that immortal spark, that static point in eternity. The creative forces of the universe are inherent in us as much as in any God - at the level of our eternal core, it is we ourselves (as one) who spin the web of the outer worlds, including the sheath known as the akashic field.
Why can't there be other 'higher' agents, such as the soul and the monad within what the author has termed the akashic field ? Why does he just dismiss the idea of the soul incarnating as 'unlikely', and instead postulate something far more requiring of a leap of faith - ie. the cd's without a listener ? It could be a case of bringing a bit of scientific scepticism to bear , just for the sake of it , in order to compensate for the giant step taken in the direction of spirituality - so as not to TOTALLY alienate himself from his peers.
Its still a great work though - just a pity he restrained himself from going the whole hog.
Esoteric literature on the otherhand seems to maintain that we ARE immortal ... that we form collectively the mind of god, and that these forms are structured in a certain way (for example the numbers 3 and 7 seem to feature pretty heavily in the picture, as well as recursivity (galaxies of galaxies type of thing). The personality is the agent of the soul, and the soul is the agent of the monad. The soul spawns many personalities over many lifetimes(these do dissipate back into the field) and collects the conscious experience of each (this is the eagle). After a while the soul no longer needs the experience of physical matter ... its agent (the personality) is a perfected instrument and carries out the souls purpose in matter - just as the sculptors art eventually takes form through the heavy medium of marble, the souls vibration achieves a true and faithful expression in the world of matter. The personality is dispensed with and you just have a soul operating in the world. Eventually in a similar manner the soul itself is absorbed back into the monad ... and so on as long as there is freedom of thought within the mind of god, the process goes on and on - it is eternity itself. The mortality or immortality of the self would appear to be a question of identification ... if i identify myself with my personality, then i get a different answer than if i identify myself with my soul. In the second case i (soul) will survive death, in the first case (personality) no. Similarly at another level you would need to identify with the monad to get the happy answer. i think jesus identified with the very force of life itself (the father) ... and thus knew for certain that he was exactly as immortal as the creative forces themselves. One thing that can't be created is creativity itself - it has to preceed the creation, and thus the creative forces of the universe are immortal.
Book Description
The first full-length translation in English of an essential work of postmodernist thought
Customer Reviews:
Baudrillard's Great Science Fiction Novel.......2007-04-12
This is Baudrillard's most famous work, and indeed, it is a must-read for those who wish to acquaint themselves with the basics of postmodern thought. It is beautifully written, and comes across like a sort of non-fiction equivalent of William Gibson's Neuromancer with its glittering display of polished, gleaming words patterned into strange, mercurial sentences that are not always easy to follow. But, as with Finnegans Wake, it is not so much the particular thought of the moment that counts, as it is the impression and impact upon the mental sensorium of the total experience. Baudrillard is a dazzling word-smith and it is likely that you will come away from this book with one or two new words to add to your vocabulary.
One of the things, of course, that has made this book so popular is its visual quotation in the science fiction film The Matrix, but I must say that the book does little towards an elucidation of that film. Indeed, Baudrillard himself has stated his dislike of the film (see the book "The Conspiracy of Art" for his comments), and he has stated how it compares less favorably with films built around similar themes such as The Truman Show, Mulholland Drive and others (I think David Cronenberg's Existenz is a much better take on the virtual reality theme. The Matrix seems cliched by comparison, especially since Cronenberg was already there first with his early 80's classic Videodrome). The theme of hyperreality displacing the real is not really what The Matrix is all about (there is too little in it irony for that; and no ambiguity; instead it concerns how technology robs the human soul of its spiritual potentialities) but it is what Simulacra and Simulation is about.
The French philosophers are fond of developing a single metaphysical concept and then exploring its ramifications in numerous books and their sequels: Debord's "Spectacle," for instance, is essentially equivalent to Baudrillard's hyperreality; Foucault's "episteme," though a completely different idea, is nonetheless monolithic in Foucault's thought. And much of Baudrillard's writings are an exploration of his concept of the hyperreal and how it has displaced the real.
The point of the book is that we postmoderns live inside a media-generated dome that seals us off from the "real" world. Indeed, we are so convinced by our own fabrications that we can no longer differentiate reality from its simulacrum. When spending money on gambling in Las Vegas, are we really losing all that money, or is it just a part of the "game"?
The best essay in the book is "The Precession of the Simulacra," and it is also the longest. I saved it for last and began with the shorter essays. Baudrillard's piece on J.G. Ballard's novel Crash is one of the best in the collection, as is his essay on "Hypermarket and Hypercommodity" and "The Beauborg Effect." Each of these pieces feels more like reading a science fiction novel than anything else but, let's face it, we live in a world that is stranger than science fiction. It takes an artist to make the contours of such a world visible to our perception, and Baudrillard does a fine job of this. He is, however, less successful with his pitiful one page ramblings on Apocalypse Now, which is disappointing and sheds almost no light on Coppola's masterpiece. (For this, the reader would do well to consult Ebert's Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons).
I confess that there are paragraphs I did not understand and words that sound as if they are made up, but this is actually true of most authors who have something profound to say (Lewis Mumford, for instance, or Heidegger). But Simulacra and Simulation is an important work and should be read despite its difficulties. Read it just the way you would a poem by Holderlin or Rilke. That is, don't try too hard to understand it, just let the imagery sink into your consciousness and enjoy the alterations that it produces upon you.
--John David Ebert
author, Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons: Film as the Mythology of Electronic Society
The Key to Understanding Jean Baudrillard.......2007-01-09
Baudrillard's classic is neither easy to read, nor is it the last word in continental postmodernism. It is also replete with ideas of questionable merit. So, why I have rated it with fives stars? Because buried within its pages, among the dross and the drivel, are enough intellectual gems to make the entire exercise more than worthwhile! Even with its flaws, Simulacra and Simulation reveals Jean Baudrillard to be one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century. Any person deeply interested in critically understanding the postmodern, media saturated era in which we live, needs to read this book.
The most useless book I have ever read........2006-09-19
Hardly being a serious look into the (supposed) simulated world, Simulacra and Simulation unnecessarily confuses, compounds, and over-estimates the reality of simulation, and implies simulation in virtually everything while failing to give any real evidence or examples for this phenomenon. Through and through, Baudrillard fails to adequately define his terms, concerns, and sources for his critiques. While never settling on one particular point, his arbitrary method of critiquing never moves beyond the realm of opinion. Critical analysis of the subject matter (whatever that is) is never applied, instead being sacrificed for ever more obscured superficial observations. Baudrillard gives us no example as to the cause of his concerns (whatever those may be) let alone giving us any real solutions as to how we may pierce through our alleged self created illusions. Nor does he give us any real insight as to how these critiques can be applied in any useful way to our education or our daily life. If this is what is passing for philosophy today, I can only imagine how useless the field will become in fifty years if we continue to look to Baudrillard as the top of his field. Superfluous and meaningless double-talk is all you will get out of this useless excuse for a book. For anyone interested in reading "Simulacra and Simulation", I would sooner recommend Dr. Seuss "Green Eggs and Ham." You will have more fun reading it, and you will probably learn more as well.
Where is real?.......2006-09-08
What is real anymore? Where can I find it at? In our mass-multi-media world, is there really anything "real" anywhere? Or is it all just one large simulation? I do not claim to be on the Postmodern bandwagon, or to 100% agree with their ideas and thoughts, but this was a very interesting read that will possibly make you ask "What is real?"
Jean Baudrillard is a Rockstar.......2006-04-15
Jean Baudrillard is not practical. He discusses the death of the real in an often persuasive way, but offers no conclusions as to how this should affect the practice of cultural theory or human behavior. Nor does he offer suggestions for preventing the death of the real--he just wallows in it.
Still, Baudrillard sure is a hoot. I love reading him the way I love reading J.G. Ballard and watching David Cronenberg movies. He offers a great, cynical rush: highly recommended to masturbatory pessimists and fans of new wave science-fiction.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent.......2001-04-27
I have not yet read this book, but I just finished a class Ms. Grosz taught on Sigmund Freud, and she is a brilliant person. If her books are anything like her teaching skills, this is definitely worth the read!
The mind returns to the body!.......2000-05-17
Grosz's work is a triumph of corporeal phenomenology. The book discusses the role of the body as it pertains to gender, race and sex. The body is not just an atomic aggregate but rather a lived experience. The first part of the book, "Inside Out," explores the psychoanalytic view of the body whereas the part titled "Outside In" covers society's pressures on the body. Grosz concludes by addressing the differences between the male and female body, and how the body-politic cannot be ignored when disucssing femininsm.
Definitely worth a read.......1999-06-05
Thoughtful, energetic discussion of the gendered body. One of the best introductions to Australian feminist theory. quintan wikswo
Book Description
An ancient title of respect for women, the word “cunt” long ago veered off this noble path. Inga Muscio traces the road from honor to expletive, giving women the motivation and tools to claim “cunt” as a positive and powerful force in their lives. In this fully revised edition, she explores, with candidness and humor, such traditional feminist issues as birth control, sexuality, jealousy between women, and prostitution with a fresh attitude for a new generation of women. Sending out a call for every woman to be the Cuntlovin’ Ruler of Her Sexual Universe, Muscio stands convention on its head by embracing all things cunt-related. This edition is fully revised with updated resources, a new foreword from sexual pioneer Betty Dodson, and a new afterword by the author. “Bright, sharp, empowering, long-lasting, useful, sexy....”—San Francisco Chronicle “... Cunt provides fertile ground for psychological growth.”—San Francisco Bay Guardian “Cunt does for feminism what smoothies did for high-fiber diets—it reinvents the oft-indigestible into something sweet and delicious.”—Bust Magazine
Customer Reviews:
Femfolkart.......2007-09-17
Woman's Liberation don't have to be corny, whiny, nasty or boring, as this flip hip(pie) D.I.Y. riotgrrrrrrrrrr prolecult anarchist prosepoem 'zine(esque) masterpiece so amply demonstrates. Dissing both Eve Ensler's "corporate feminism" AND the Womyn-Born-Womyn separatists in equal measure, the 2nd Edition gracefully embraces queercunts, making Inga Muscio's anthem especially moderne politic. She doesn't write so much as rant on paper, euphoric anger and humor and daring, like Sleater-Kinney amping Angela Davis smartly Through The Flower (which the cover invokes). Wit and passion and power chords - the section on Granmmas For President brought psychedelic tears to my eyes. Heyheyhey, how many feminist treatises receive raves from MaximumR&R anyhoo?
The largest sex organ is the mind.............2007-06-05
An interesting etymology polluted by whacky hippie stew-brained lifestyle suggestions, which makes the archaeology of knowledge and thesis suspect. So this is no field manual for the Tactical Women's Assault Team on their take-back-the-night-language-history-power-whatever rampage. Still, that this book exists at all is evidence of the triumph of Western civilization over the primitivism this author confuses with her projections of ideological and bucolic freedom.
Really fun to have on your college dorm bookshelf. Sure to attract arguments with hairy-legged man-hating hags and fundy know-nothings alike, so crack a beer and prepare yourself for a non-Aristotelian laugh riot of a Symposium. First person to mention Chomsky looses.
The Ann Coulter of the Left.......2007-01-16
Before I write a review for this book, let me first say that I think that it is a joke that Amazon allows people to vote on whether they find reviews 'helpful' - if the review is positive and you like the book, you'll vote favorably; if it is negative and you like the book, you'll vote unfavorably. And vice versa. In any case, none of us actually have a 'blank slate.'
That having said, let me compare Inga Muscio to Ann Coulter. Both are extremists (the former a leftwing and the latter a rightwing) who are strong advocates of violence as a means of bringing about change and who are invited to college campuses around the country (if the college/university can afford them) to endorse their books (rather than to actively engage in dialogue with the students who might oppose them). Both are a bunch of self-important blowhards whose style is not even remotely academic - in the case of Muscio, swearing in every other sentence, not citing her references, hurling ad hominem attacks at people she dislikes, and repeating herself three times to make herself come off as profound; in the case of Coulter, distorting facts, making straw man/unverified/counterfactual claims, hurling ad hominem attacks at people she dislikes, and above all, just lying. Both authors do not deserve to have their works read by anyone invested in the business of truthseeking.
Now, for my review. To be fair, Inga deserves commendations for taking on a (sadly) risque subject in our culture, viz. promoting appreciation for the female genitalia. But why does such a (wo)manifesto have to include the glorification of abortion, violence towards men and a consistent undertone of revenge? I am male but am still very much pro-choice and am not entirely offended by strong feminist writing, even which advocates (however jokingly) killing men, but men too have been victimized by violence (committed by other men and women alike) and therefore, can and should be allies to ending violence against women. I recommend works by Eve Ensler, Betty Dodson, bell hooks, Betty Reardon, or Mary Daly if one wants true feminist scholarship.
Wow :).......2006-03-25
A little bit about my lens with which I view the world: I'm a 21 year old woman, a history major currently attending a military college with only 10% other women (which I don't mind,) straight, and a republican (fine, yell at me later.) That said, this book was my introduction into the world of herstory and just being a loving woman (both self and others.) I've always had these ideas hanging in the back of my head, and always been bothered by some blatant inequities, so ingrained in our societal mind that they're apparent even at my school, which does everything it can to ensure our sex does not hinder or help us in relation to the boys. I really enjoyed this new view of my body part which until now, was really just a huge pain, a constant reminder that I wasn't as fast or as strong as the boys, and that simply living entailed so many more risks than they had to take. I wasn't so cool with the section on abortion, but that's the author's choice, I kinda believe that unborn women have rights too.
I was amazed at the section on rape-- how it is committed by people with a complete and utter lack of respect, well, I can't paraphase it well, I don't have the book with me right now, but it was an outstanding point.
Thank God that we were all born in a time that women can *finally* start expounding on our right to equality and at the same time the blessing we have that we are different than men (but still wonderful!)
Interesting, pro-woman read.......2006-02-22
This book was given to me to read by a friend. It was one of the most inspiring, woman-friendly books I have ever read. I would encourage everyone, man, woman, whatever, to read it. I may not use sea sponges as sanitary pads or trust my sexual health to herbs, but if this book taught me one thing, it was to think before making a degrading comment about another woman, to accept myself, flaws and all, and to encourage other women to love themselves. As for my bias, well I am a pro-choice, female, democrat college student. But I encourage everyone to read it. Even if most of it offends you, I can't imagine anyone reading this book coming out of it worse off (ie disliking women, and all people, more) than they did prior to reading it.
Book Description
Reared in the Hindu tradition, quantum physicist Amit Goswami integrates our spiritual heart with our scientific head.
Customer Reviews:
Great topic.......2007-05-07
This is thick writing but well worth it if you are interested in this topic. The first time I tried to read it, I was on a 24 hour train trip. That was not the right occasion. This is a wide-awake-afternoon type book. You need to be able to offer full concentration and brain power. It's worth it.
Not for everyone.......2006-03-17
This is not an easy book to read, but for the spiritual seeker it can be stimulating and rewarding. Goswami is an expert at quantum physics and explains how it helps to reveal spiritual phenomena. His explanations are clear but also tedious. He answers practically every question that can be anticipated; however,in doing so he risks losing all but the most determined reader.
This is not to pan the book. It is superlative in many ways, full of undeniable wisdom. But I'm not sure he adequately addresses the ultimate question: how does it apply to the common man? Would the Creator give us a world of marvelous complexity and hide its meaning from everyone but mental giants? Goswami shows us the complexity and masters the art of elucidation. But are most people that interested in the hows and whys of our being here and what we should do about it? If there are actions to take, instructions to follow, beliefs to accept, why aren't they already clear to the least of us? Why can't everyone figure it out? These questions are addressed not only to Goswami but to all other speculators in this genre. Why can't teaching of this magnitude be simple?
I recommend this book to anyone who has the time, inclination and intelligence to get through it. That eliminates much of the world's population. And I have an idea that the Being responsible for the presence of the human race on this planet values us all. Goswami calls that Being consciousness.
He eloquently brings science and spirituality together, without injuring the sensibilities of either's adherents. He emphasizes time and again that consciousness is the ground of all being. And he wraps up the discussion with what he calls four stages of enlightenment. But it leaves me wondering how many of us billions remain unaware of them and what, if any, the consequences are.
THE AHAH! BOOK.......2003-01-12
I was about four years old when I discovered that things die, and the outrage that I felt at this news has fueled a fifty year search to understand what we're doing here. This is not my only literary quest, but it is a big one, and it has taken me all over the map. When I studied relativity and quantum physics in college, I saw - 'through a glass darkly' - that this was an important piece of the puzzle, but real understanding eluded me. I just bought the The Visionary Window, and I knew almost immediately, that this, for me, was the Ahah! book - the one that brought all the pieces together. I recommend it highly.
Hold a Webster with you for this.......2001-10-24
Although the book seems to be sincere effort in terms of the treatment of subject, but the language is too tricky with very very esoteric terminology used. Also the use of word 'quantum' seems to be too casual and thus the terms such as 'quantum monad' seem too ambiguous. Perhaps when Mr Goswami has finally reached some perspective about 'truth', he will realize that any truth that can be expressed, ceases to be 'the truth'.
Finally, Unification of Eastern and Western thought........2001-10-18
Many students of philosophy understand and appreciate both
Western materialist philosophies and Eastern philosophies
more centered on consciousness. Like looking at an atom,
and looking at a galaxy, these two philosophies needed a
middleground to connect them
In this book, Goswami is the first person ever to unify
the two seemingly disparate ideologies. He provides the
middleground in a way that books like "The Tao of Physics"
fail to do. (They only "hint" at the connection).
I am very happy that I bought this book.
Book Description
This abridged edition makes the Freud/Jung correspondence accessible to a general readership at a time of renewed critical and historical reevaluation of the documentary roots of modern psychoanalysis. This edition reproduces William McGuire's definitive introduction, but does not contain the critical apparatus of the original edition.
Customer Reviews:
An inside view of two brilliant minds.......2007-05-12
I loved this book mostly because I have been fascinated by Freud for many years and now I am studying Jung. To have the privilege of reading their letter back and forth is a treat. Also there are insights into current problems that Psychology still grapples over.
Archetypal splitting.......2006-06-06
This is an amazing collection of letters which depict the relationship of two of the greatest psychologists of all time. Naturally, there are people who interpret this relationship in different ways, especially as a very specific situation, peculiar to the development of psychology or otherwise. I think otherwise. Life is rarely linear--it's usually Normally Distributed. Things tend to go in cycles, not straight lines. The relationship between Freud the mentor & Jung the mentee is just not that unusual. In fact, it parallels that of every child (especially males stereotypically seeking independence). There comes a time to leave the nest & for the mentee to strike out on his own--just as there is a time for a new paradigm (per Thomas Kuhn's classic, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"). This is precisely what occurred between Freud & Jung. It's almost archetypal. There's even something of a parallel between Jung & Father Victor White in Jung's "Letters." This book has some interesting quotes from each of the two psychologists:
By Freud:
p. 119 Take my urgent advice, arm yourself with ill temper against all unreasonable demands.
p. 121 One must try to learn something from every experience.
p. 169 I have long known that one can't change people. Everyone has something worthwhile in him. We must content ourselves with getting it out of him.
By Jung:
p. 84 What people don't know surpasses the imagination, and what they don't want to know is simply unbelievable.
p. 157 one likes human beings around one and not complex-masks.
And, very apropos: p. 462 Emma Jung: it is always the nearest thing that one sees worst.
A fight of Titans for primacy in the field of Psychanalisys........2003-04-23
This is a sad book to read. In fact, one would not expect that such a type of bad development would occur between the two most important figures of psychoanalisys. It is as if Marx and Engels had broken their friendship for life and began to fight for fame and glory in front of everybody. The spoil was huge: nothing more than the primacy for fame and glory in the first steps of psychanalisys.
Sure, the letters span a pretty much limited space of time of no more than 8 years (1906-1914) but the reader has to keep in mind that what was at stake was the establishing of the foundations of psychoanalisys all over Europe and also in the whole World.
What began as a cordial friendship and evolved into an almost father (Freud) to son (Jung) relationship, deteriorated into the most depressive fighting of personal primacy on many subjects. In this regard, it seems that the feud was initiated by Freud who considered Jung a type of his personal assistant to market the developments of his findings
THe fact that this is a abridged edition does not mean nothing except that here the common reader will find the most important material exchanged by the two great men and will be saved from some meaningless material of more burocratical tone.
Also of value is the introduction that ilustrates all the effort made by the two family sides to publish the letters, in spite the view by Jung that the ideal time for them to be published would be 20 to 30 years after his death.
THis is a must reading for anyone interested in the history of psychanalisys.
Book Description
Without the body there would be no feminist theory. And it's possible to say that without feminist theory there would be no modern "body." The body has long been a contested site in feminist circles. From debates about motherhood, pregnancy, and abortion, discussions of pleasure and sex, to more philosophical discussions of embodiment and the gendering of bodies, the major thinkers of feminist theory have reshaped our ideas of how women and men understand what the body is.
In Feminist Theory and the Body Price and Shildrick bring together over 40 of the world's greatest feminist writers to represent the key arguments from all of the different feminist schools of thought on the body. The book's seven sections cover Woman as Body?, Sexy Bodies, Bodies in Science and Biomedicine, After the Binary, Altered Bodies, BodySpaceMatter and Performing the Body. It includes articles on race, cyberspace, theatre, classics, transsexuality, reproductive technologies, illness, rape, plastic surgery, disabilities and much, much more.
Contributors: Anne Balsamo, Christine Battersby, Lynda Birke, Susan Bordo, Rosie Braidotti, Judith Butler, Sue-Ellen Case, Fen Coles, Barbara Creed, Kathy Davis, Heather Findlay, Moira Gatens, Elizabeth Grosz, Judith Halberstam, Evelyn Hammonds, Donna Haraway, Luce Irigaray, Ludmilla Jordanova, Audre Lorde, Helen Marshall, Emily Martin, Trinh T. Min-ha, Nalini Natarajan, Pratibha Parmar, Janet Price, Denise Riley, Gillian Rose, Andrea Benton Rushing, Jana Sawicki, Londa Schiebinger, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Lynn Segal, Margrit Shildrick, Felly Nkweto Simmonds, Elizabeth Spelman, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Kristina Straub, Awa Thiam, Alice Walker, Susan Wendell, Juniper Wiley, Jeanette Winterson, Bibi Bakare-Yusuf.
Book Description
The Fashioned Body provides a wide-ranging and original overview of fashion and dress from an historical and sociological perspective. The book gives a clear summary of the theories surrounding the role and function of fashion in modern society, and examines how fashion plays a crucial role in the formation of modern identity through its articulation of the body, gender and sexuality.In examining fashion in relation to the body, the book offers a much needed synthesis between the literature on fashion and dress, which has tended to ignore the body, and the sociology of the body, which has tended to marginalize fashion and dress. Entwistle shows how an understanding of fashion and dress requires an understanding of the meanings acquired by the body in culture - since it is the body that fashion speaks to and which is dressed in almost all social situations and encounters. She argues that while fashion refers to a specific system of dress originating in the west, all cultures 'dress' the body in the same way, making it a crucial feature of social order. Drawing on the work of Douglas, Foucault, Merleau-Ponty, Goffman and Bourdieu, the book offers insights into the connections that need to be made between the body, fashion and dress, arguing for an account of fashion and dress as 'situated bodily practice'.The Fashioned Body will be an invaluable resource for students and academics interested in the social role of fashion and dress in modern culture and will also be of interest to students and researchers in the areas of consumption, cultural studies, gender studies and feminist theory.
Customer Reviews:
Fashion like a serious theoretical issue........2007-05-07
Entwistle's approach is one of the most serious works about fashion and body's role in fashion. She join together many criticims and thinkers of the system of fashion. It's not a simple history about the changes and costumes throughout the Western World, since she breaks tradicional stories about theories of trickle down, zeitgeist, and shifting erogenous zone, and drawns on Foucault, Kunzle, Veblen, Simmel , Wilson or Steele, among others, to explain a number of theoretical approaches about this topic. I recommended it for studies on material culture and fashion history. Available in spanish, titled "El Cuerpo y la Moda".
Customer Reviews:
Comprehensive..........2007-06-09
A Comprehensive listing of symbols, would be a good source of reference. But no illustrations at all, and illustrations would have made it more enjoyable to read/ browse the book for its own sake.
Disappointed with Amazon.......2006-06-20
While this is certainly an interesting reference tool, the book Amazon keeps in stock as 'The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols' is not the one pictured. The book that this page leads you to believe you are buying is quite a bit shorter, but actually gives illustrations of the symbols (I used to own a copy of it). The book that Amazon sells on this page is a fairly useful reference book, but lacks the imagery of the one pictured, which some buyers may be seeking.
An essential reference work.......2006-02-03
Hands down, the best resource of its kind available in print.
A book full of surprise.......2004-12-30
My teacher recommanded this dictionary to me (she got a copy of original French version). After I got this book I had a quick check of it. However, I couldn't stop when I started reading it! I found myself being "absorbed" in this book! I read it not as a dictionary but a book full of surprise. Although there ain't so many beautiful pictures in this book, I'd still like to recommand it. But if you want a book full of pictures, just choose the Norton one.
The Cadillac of Symbol Books.......2004-12-04
I have studied symbols and observed them in my life for over 30 years, and at latest count own over 20 books on symbols. Unfortunately, after I had obtained about five of them, the succeeding ones became mostly just
Book Description
In Bodies in Dissent Daphne A. Brooks argues that from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, black transatlantic activists, actors, singers, and other entertainers frequently transformed the alienating conditions of social and political marginalization into modes of self-actualization through performance. Brooks considers the work of African American, Anglo, and racially ambiguous performers in a range of popular entertainment, including racial melodrama, spectacular theatre, moving panorama exhibitions, Pan-Africanist musicals, Victorian magic shows, religious and secular song, spiritualism, and dance. She describes how these entertainers experimented with different ways of presenting their bodies in public—through dress, movement, and theatrical technologies—to defamiliarize the spectacle of “blackness” in the transatlantic imaginary.
Brooks pieces together reviews, letters, playbills, fiction, and biography in order to reconstruct not only the contexts of African American performance but also the reception of the stagings of “bodily insurgency” which she examines. Throughout the book, she juxtaposes unlikely texts and entertainers in order to illuminate the complicated transatlantic cultural landscape in which black performers intervened. She places Adah Isaacs Menken, a star of spectacular theatre, next to Sojourner Truth, showing how both used similar strategies of physical gesture to complicate one-dimensional notions of race and gender. She also considers Henry Box Brown’s public re-enactments of his escape from slavery, the Pan-Africanist discourse of Bert Williams’s and George Walker’s musical In Dahomey (1902–04), and the relationship between gender politics, performance, and New Negro activism in the fiction of the novelist and playwright Pauline Hopkins and the postbellum stage work of the cakewalk dancer and choreographer Aida Overton Walker. Highlighting the integral connections between performance and the construction of racial identities, Brooks provides a nuanced understanding of the vitality, complexity, and influence of black performance in the United States and throughout the black Atlantic.
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