Hello, Prof. Turkle has asked that I share this with the STS Community. Please see that advertisement below for a talk by Elizabeth Lunbeck on Tuesday, May 20.
Sincerely, Randyn RANDYN A. MILLER • • Assistant to Director David Kaiser • Program in Science, Technology, and Society • 77 Massachusetts Avenue, E51-163 • Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 • http://web.mit.edu/sts • [email protected] • 617-253-3452 • 617-258-1881 fax > >> >> BOSTON PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY AND INSTITUTE >> HANNS SACHS LIBRARY >> >> invites you to >> >> MEET THE AUTHOR >> Elizabeth Lunbeck, PhD >> >> The Americanization of Narcissism >> Harvard University Press, 2014 >> >> Tuesday, May 20, 2014 >> >> 169 Herrick Rd, Newton MA 02459 >> >> 7:45 p.m. reception >> 8:15 p.m. book discussion >> 9:30 p.m. book signing >> >> >> About the Book: >> American social critics in the 1970s, convinced that their nation was in >> decline, turned to psychoanalysis for answers and seized on narcissism as >> the sickness of the age. Books indicting Americans as greedy, shallow, and >> self-indulgent appeared, none more influential than Christopher Lasch's >> famous 1978 jeremiad The Culture of Narcissism. This line of critique >> reached a crescendo the following year in Jimmy Carter's "malaise speech" >> and has endured to this day. >> >> But as Elizabeth Lunbeck argues, the American critics missed altogether the >> breakthrough in psychoanalytic thinking that was championing narcissism's >> positive aspects. Psychoanalysts had clashed over narcissism from the moment >> Freud introduced it in 1914, and they had long been split on its defining >> aspects: How much self-love, self-esteem, and self-indulgence was normal and >> desirable? While Freud's orthodox followers sided with asceticism, analytic >> dissenters argued for gratification. Fifty years later, the Viennese émigré >> Heinz Kohut led a psychoanalytic revolution centered on a "normal >> narcissism" that he claimed was the wellspring of human ambition, >> creativity, and empathy. But critics saw only pathology in narcissism. The >> result was the loss of a vital way to understand ourselves, our needs, and >> our desires. >> Narcissism's rich and complex history is also the history of the shifting >> fortunes and powerful influence of psychoanalysis in American thought and >> culture. Telling this story, The Americanization of Narcissism ultimately >> opens a new view on the central questions faced by the self struggling amid >> the tumultuous crosscurrents of modernity. >> >> "A penetrating intellectual history of perhaps the most important decade of >> American psychoanalysis. Lunbeck reveals the basic machinery of >> psychoanalytic discourse in the context of historical and cultural movements >> of the fin de siècle. It is a highly entertaining and deeply edifying read" >> - Peter Fonagy, University College London. >> >> "Lunbeck brilliantly conveys the ins and outs of narcissism in the past >> century. With a historian's insight, she marshals sources from the popular >> press to the academic and psychoanalytic literature to produce a highly >> readable book that will be of very great interest to a broad range of >> readers" - Anton O. Kris, Harvard Medical School. >> >> About the Author >> Elizabeth Lunbeck teaches courses in the history of psychoanalysis in the >> Department of the History of Science at Harvard and is an academic program >> candidate at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. >> >> >> >> Books are on sale in the library at a discounted price! >> Forward this email >> >> This email was sent to [email protected] by [email protected] | >> Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | >> Privacy Policy. >> Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute | 169 Herrick Road | Newton >> Centre | MA | 02459 >
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