Reinventing the Soul by Mari Ruti

Reinventing the Soul by Mari Ruti

Essential reading for scholars and students in critical theory, psychoanalysis, and gender studies.

How does the self care for itself in the posthumanist era? What psychic processes might allow the postmodern subject to find meaning and value in its life? Is it possible to delineate a theory of psychic potentiality that is compatible with poststructuralist models of fluid, decentered, and polyvalent subjectivity?

Reinventing the Soul offers a new perspective on what it means to be a human being and to strive in the world despite the wounding effects of the socialization process. Drawing on the rich legacies of French poststructuralism and Lacanian psychoanalysis, Ruti builds an affirmative alternative to the post-Foucaultian tendency to envision subjectivity as a function of hegemonic systems of power. She proposes that the subject's encounter with the world also necessarily activates the psyche's innovative potential. By focusing on matters of creative agency, imaginative empowerment, inner metamorphosis, and self-actualization, Ruti outlines some of the mechanisms by which the psyche manages not only to survive its lack, alienation, or suffering, but also to transform its abjection into an existentially livable reality. Central to Ruti's argument is the idea that human beings relate to the world in active rather than merely passive ways--as dynamic creators of meaning rather than as powerless dupes of disciplinary power.

Mari Ruti (PhD, Harvard University) is the University of Toronto's Distinguished Professor of Critical Theory and Gender and Sexuality Studies. Reinventing the Soul: Posthumanist Theory and Psychic Life (2006), A Universe of Fragile Things: Psychoanalysis and the Art of Leading (2009), The Summons of Love (2011), The Singularity of Being: Lacan and the Immortal Within (2012), and The Call of Character: Living a Life Worth Living (2013) are among her five academic books. The Argument for Falling in Love: Why We Can't Control the Crazy of Love - and Why That's the Greatest Part (2011) is her first book.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781590511237
ISBN 10	1590511239
Title	Reinventing the Soul
Author	Mari Ruti
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Other Press LLC
Year published	2006-08-17
Number of pages	260
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable