Mehr lesen
Klappentext We are! Julia Kristeva writes! strangers to ourselves; and indeed much of contemporary theory describes the human condition as one of alienation. Eloquently arguing that we cannot explain the development of individuality or subjectivity apart from its social context! Kelly Oliver makes a powerful case for recognizing the social aspects of alienation and the psychic aspects of oppression. Oliver's work shows how existentialist and psychoanalytic notions of alienation cover up specific forms of racist and sexist alienation that serve as the underside of the human condition. She reveals that such notions are actually symptomatic of the subject's anxiety and guilt over the oppression on which his privileged position rests. Not only does such alienation not embody subjectivity and humanity! it in fact "undermines them. Asserting that sublimation and forgiveness--and not alienation--constitute subjectivity! Oliver explores the complex ways in which the alienation unique to oppression leads to depression! shame! anger! or violence; and how these affects can be transformed into agency! individuality! solidarity! and community. Zusammenfassung Oliver (philosophy! Vanderbilt U.) does not attempt to apply psychoanalysis to oppression. Rather she transforms psychoanalytic concepts such as alienation! melancholy! and shame into social concepts by developing a psychoanalytic theory based on a notion of the individual or psyche that is thoroughly social. The psyche and the social world are so
