The author of The Reproduction of Mothering examines the problems with how psychoanalysis views sexuality and gender. Nancy J. Chodorow takes her fellow psychoanalysts to task for their monolithic and pathologizing accounts of deviant gender and sexuality. Drawing from her own clinical experience, the work of Freud, and a close reading of psychoanalytic texts, Chodorow argues that psychoanalysis has yet to disentangle male dominance from heterosexuality. Further, she demonstrates the paucity of psychoanalytic understanding of heterosexuality and the problematic polarizing of normal and abnormal sexualities. By returning to Freud and interpreting psychoanalysis through clinical eyes, Chodorow contends that psychoanalysis must consider individual specificity and personal, cultural, and social factors. Such a methodology entails a plurality of femininities and masculinities and enables us to understand a variety of sexualities. Praise for Femininities, Masculinities, Sexualities “Raises challenging questions but makes no easy answers.” —Psychoanalytic Quarterly “[Chodorow’s] convincing analysis leads us to wonder whether it is any longer useful to think in terms of a normative boy and girl, man and woman, father and mother, and heterosexual and homosexual.” —Sally Moskowitz “Chodorow helps us through the dense riches of Freud’s writing, signposting his scattered but significant moments of empathy with women’s subjective experience even as she takes apart his objectified, masculine images.” —The Women’s Review of Books “A provocative reminder that these are complex issues and that humans, with their capacity for individual variation, are complicated subjects.” —Kirkus Reviews

Nancy Chodorow, in her groundbreaking book The Reproduction of Mothering, quite simply changed the conversation in at least three areas of study: psychoanalysis, women's studies, and sociology. In her latest book, Individualizing Gender and Sexuality, she examines the complexity and uniqueness of each person's personal creation of sexuality and gender and the ways that these interrelate with other aspects of psychic and cultural life. She brings her well-known theoretical agility, wide-ranging interdisciplinarity, and clinical experience to every chapter, advocating for the clinician's openness, curiosity, and theoretical pluralism. The book begins with reflections on Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, followed by considerations of Melanie Klein and Stephen Mitchell, as well as on her own work and on the postmodern turn in psychoanalytic gender theory. Subsequent chapters address contemporary clinical-cultural issues such as women and work, women and motherhood, and men and violence. Concluding chapters elaborate on the multiple ingredients and the personal affective, conflictual, and defensive constellations and processes that create sexuality and gender in each individual. Ending with a chapter on homosexualities as compromise formations, Chodorow deepens her account of clinical individuality and sex-gender transference-countertransference while bringing her readers back to Freud and to the many strands that followed, as she consolidates a consistent line of interest in sexuality and gender, theory and practice, sustained over a lifetime.

This book explores the shifting role of the minister in light of the experiences of college men in the United States. Young men frequently struggle to know what it means to be a man and doubt that churches can supply the meaning and direction for which they hunger. These men are not necessarily lost, but they do need a certain kind of spiritual accompaniment that is likely to push many ministers outside of postures and practices with which they have grown comfortable. This interdisciplinary work draws together feminist and masculinist theories, contemporary practices in campus ministry, recent literature on religious deconversion and individual interviews with college men in order to argue for new ways amid the practice of ministry. This work invites ministers to become more apophatic—to grow comfortable with moving away from clarity and to adopt ungrasping postures of ministry that attend to the unfolding theology of the individual. This repositions campus ministers to support young adults from a range of spiritual commitments. Disaffiliating Ministry invites ministers to eliminate wasteful ministerial habits, to explore new ministry practices and to enjoy the freedom of accompanying young men in processes of leaving behind attitudes and actions that cease to be life giving while deepening in faith, courage and responsibility for others.

Social and cultural anthropology and archaeology are rich subjects with deep connections in the social and physical sciences. Over the past 150 years, the subject matter and different theoretical perspectives have expanded so greatly that no single individual can command all of it. Consequently, both advanced students and professionals may be confronted with theoretical positions and names of theorists with whom they are only partially familiar, if they have heard of them at all. Students, in particular, are likely to turn to the web to find quick background information on theorists and theories. However, most web-based information is inaccurate and/or lacks depth. Students and professionals need a source to provide a quick overview of a particular theory and theorist with just the basics—the "who, what, where, how, and why," if you will. In response, SAGE Reference plans to publish the two-volume Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia. Features & Benefits: Two volumes containing approximately 335 signed entries provide users with the most authoritative and thorough reference resource available on anthropology theory, both in terms of breadth and depth of coverage. To ease navigation between and among related entries, a Reader's Guide groups entries thematically and each entry is followed by Cross-References. In the electronic version, the Reader's Guide combines with the Cross-References and a detailed Index to provide robust search-and-browse capabilities. An appendix with a Chronology of Anthropology Theory allows students to easily chart directions and trends in thought and theory from early times to the present. Suggestions for Further Reading at the end of each entry and a Master Bibliography at the end guide readers to sources for more detailed research and discussion.

This comprehensive book provides an indispensable introduction to the most significant figures in contemporary social theory. Grounded strongly in the European tradition, the profiles include Michel Foucault, J[um]urgen Habermas, Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, Pierre Bourdieu, Zygmunt Bauman, Martin Heidegger, Fredric Jameson, Richard Rorty, Nancy Chodorow, Anthony Giddens, Stuart Hall, Luce Irigaray and Donna Haraway. In guiding students through the key figures in an accessible and authoritative fashion, the book provides detailed accounts of the development of the work of major social theorists and charts the relationship between different traditions of social, cultural and political thought. Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory will become a major reference work in the field of social theory because it offers in-depth commentaries that comprehensively examine the contents, contexts and critical evaluation of key theorists of the day.

Weaving personal narrative with a synthesis of feminist mothering theory and psychoanalytic theories of narcissism, Isaac D. Balbus describes his effort to share in the care of his daughter during her first four years.

Rosemary Balsam argues that re-tracing theoretical steps back to the biological body's attributes is fruitful in searching the clues of our mental development.

This book highlights recent education research on Japan based on sociological and other related approaches to historical developments and accomplishments. Written primarily by members of the Japan Society of Educational Sociology, it brings to light concerns and viewpoints that have grown out of the Japanese educational context. By focusing on uniquely Japanese educational research phenomena, the book offers international readers new insights and contributes to the international debate on education. It may help sociologists and social scientists outside Japan gain a deeper understanding of ongoing changes in education in Japan as well as its historical and structural contexts.

More than ever before there is a need for in-depth dialogue between theology and sciences with regard to gender and human sexuality. This is especially true for Christian communities that are increasingly challenged by the many questions and experiences people have. This book provides the material to explore the various views and bring them together from a Christian perspective, based on a theological account of desire. It shows how gender, sexuality, and faith are positively connected without losing out on deep Christian values and norms.

Sociological Theory in the Contemporary Era, Second Edition, combines well-edited, important original writings from sociology’s core contemporary theorists with introductory text that provides a historical and theoretical framework for understanding them. Authors Scott Appelrouth and Laura Desfor Edles use this unique text/reader approach to introduce students to contemporary sociological theory in a lively and engaging fashion. The text/reader provides not only a biographical and theoretical summary of each theorist’s works but also an overarching scaffolding that students can use to examine, compare, and contrast each theorist’s major themes and concepts. The book also offers discussions of past social and intellectual milieus to provide a holistic picture of the development of the theories discussed.