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In this volume, the work of British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott is set in conversation with some of today's most talented psychodynamically-sensitive political thinkers. The editors and contributors demonstrate that Winnicott's thought contains underappreciated political insights, discoverable in his reflections on the nature of the maturational process, and useful in working through difficult impasses confronting contemporary political theorists. Specifically, Winnicott's psychoanalytic theory and practice offer a framework by which the political subject, destabilized and disrupted in much postmodern and contemporary thinking, may be recentered. Each chapter in this volume, in its own way, grapples with this central theme: the potential for authentic subjectivity and inter-subjectivity to arise within a nexus of autonomy and dependence, aggression and civility, destructiveness and care. This volume is unique in its contribution to the growing field of object-relations-oriented political and social theory. It will be of interest to political scientists, psychologists, and scholars of related subjects in the humanities and social sciences.
List of contents
Introduction .- Being and Encountering: Movement and Aggression in Winnicott .- The Isolation of the True Self and the Problem of Impingement: Implications of Winnicott's Theory for Social Connection and Political Engagement .- The Psychoanalytic Winnicott We Need Now: On the Way to a Real Ecological Thought .- Playing 'Riot': Identity in Refuge - Absent Child Narratives in the 2013 Hindu Muslim Riots in Muzaffarnagar, India .- Safety in Danger and Privacy in Privation: Ambivalent Fantasies of Natural States Invoked in Reaction to Loss .- 'Out Like a Lion': Melancholia with Euripides and Winnicott .- Forgiveness and Transitional Experience .- In Transition, but to where?: Winnicott, Integration, and Democratic Associations .- Vanquishing the False Self: Winnicott, Critical Theory and the Restoration of the Spontaneous Gesture .- Adults in the Playground: Winnicott and Arendt on Politics and Playfulness .- D.W. Winnicott, Ethics, and Race: Psychoanalytic Thought and Racial Equality in the United States .- Winnicott at Work: Potential Space and the Facilitating Organization .- Winnicott and the History of Welfare State Thought in Britain .- Vulnerability, Dependence, Sovereignty, and Ego-Distortion Theory: Psycho-Analyzing Political Behaviors in the Developing World.
About the author
Matthew H. Bowker is Clinical Assistant Professor of Humanities at Medaille College, USA. He is the author of several books in the field of psycho-politics, including:
A Dangerous Place to Be (Forthcoming),
Ideologies of Experience(2016), and
Rethinking the Politics of Absurdity (2014).
Amy Buzby is Associate Professor of Political Science at Arkansas State University, USA. She obtained her PhD in political science from Rutgers University, USA. Her published works include
Subterranean Politics and Freud's Legacy(2013) and
Communicative Action(2010).
Summary
In this volume, the work of British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott is set in conversation with some of today’s most talented psychodynamically-sensitive political thinkers. The editors and contributors demonstrate that Winnicott’s thought contains underappreciated political insights, discoverable in his reflections on the nature of the maturational process, and useful in working through difficult impasses confronting contemporary political theorists. Specifically, Winnicott’s psychoanalytic theory and practice offer a framework by which the political subject, destabilized and disrupted in much postmodern and contemporary thinking, may be recentered. Each chapter in this volume, in its own way, grapples with this central theme: the potential for authentic subjectivity and inter-subjectivity to arise within a nexus of autonomy and dependence, aggression and civility, destructiveness and care. This volume is unique in its contribution to the growing field of object-relations-oriented political and social theory. It will be of interest to political scientists, psychologists, and scholars of related subjects in the humanities and social sciences.
