Some theorists understand the self as constituted by power relations, while others insist upon the self's autonomous capacities for critical reflection and deliberate self-transformation. All too often, these understandings of the self are assumed to be incompatible. Amy Allen, however, argues that the capacity for autonomy is rooted in the very power relations that constitute the self. Her theoretical framework illuminates both aspects of what she calls, following Foucault, the "politics of our selves." It analyzes power in all its depth and complexity, including the complicated phenomenon of subjection, without giving up on the ideal of autonomy. Drawing on original and critical readings of a diverse group of theorists, Allen shows how the self can be both constituted by power and capable of an autonomous self-constitution.

Is statecraft soulcraft? Should we look to our souls and selves in assessing the quality of our politics? Is it the business of politics to cultivate, shape, or structure our internal lives? Summarizing and answering the major theoretical positions on these issues, Peter Digeser formulates a qualified permission to protect or encourage particular forms of human identity. Public discourse on politics should not preclude talk about the role of reason in our souls or the importance of wholeness and community to our selves or the significance of autonomy for individuals. However, those who seek to place only their own conception of the self or soul within the reach of politics are as mistaken as those who would completely preclude such matters from the political realm. In proposing this view, Digeser responds to communitarians, classical political rationalists, and genealogists who argue that liberal culture fragments, debases, or normalizes our selves. He also critically analyzes perfectionist liberals who justify liberalism by virtue of its ability to cultivate autonomy and authenticity, as well as liberal neutralists who wish to avoid altogether the problem of selfcraft. All these, he argues, fall short in some way in defining the extent to which politics should be concerned with the self.

A self-help manual for women in the skills of entering politics, the aim of which is to encourage women to enter the arena of public life and to provide them with the theory and tools for practice to increase their confidence. The advice given will be of immense use to women everywhere, ranging from the very practical - how to write a press release or survive speaking in public - to detailed discussion of how a political party conference might be organized. Exercises for individuals and small groups are given to enable the reader to practice each of the skills covered.

Academic philosophy may have lost its audience, but the traditional subjects of philosophy—love, death, justice, knowledge, and faith—remain as compelling as ever. To reach a new generation, Paul W. Kahn argues that philosophy must take up these fundamental concerns as we find them in contemporary culture. He demonstrates how this can be achieved through a turn to popular film. Discussing such well-known movies as Forrest Gump (1994), The American President (1995), The Matrix (1999), Memento (2000), The History of Violence (2005), Gran Torino (2008), The Dark Knight (2008), The Road (2009), and Avatar (2009), Kahn explores powerful archetypes and their hold on us. His inquiry proceeds in two parts. First, he uses film to explore the nature of action and interpretation, arguing that narrative is the critical concept for understanding both. Second, he explores the narratives of politics, family, and faith as they appear in popular films. Engaging with genres as diverse as romantic comedy, slasher film, and pornography, Kahn explores the social imaginary through which we create and maintain a meaningful world. He finds in popular films a new setting for a philosophical inquiry into the timeless themes of sacrifice, innocence, rebirth, law, and love.

In Deploying Ourselves, David A. Westbrook puts the case for major reform of US national security. He argues that today's national security establishment is outdated and entrenched in a model of defence more befitting the post-World War II Cold War era than today's realities. In a world without military peers, Westbrook argues, the US must re-create its institutions in order to wield influence globally, based on co-operation with other states and groups. Deploying Ourselves includes specific proposals to make US national security institutions more democratically accountable.

Alongside the O.J. Simpson trial, the affair between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky now stands as the seminal cultural event of the 90s. Alternatively transfixed and repelled by this sexual scandal, confusion still reigns over its meanings and implications. How are we to make sense of a tale that is often wild and bizarre, yet replete with serious political and cultural implications? Our Monica, Ourselves provides a forum for thinking through the cultural, political, and public policy issues raised by the investigation, publicity, and Congressional impeachment proceedings surrounding the affair. It pulls this spectacle out of the framework provided by the conventions of the corporate news media, with its particular notions of what constitutes a newsworthy event. Drawing from a broad range of scholars, Our Monica, Ourselves considers Monica Lewinsky's Jewishness, Linda Tripp's face, the President's penis, the role of shame in public discourse, and what it's like to have sex as the president, as well as specific legal and historical issues at stake in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Thoughtful but accessible, immediate yet far reaching, Our Monica, Ourselves will change the way we think about the Clinton affair, while helping us reimagine culture and politics writ large. Contributors include: Lauren Berlant, Eric O. Clarke, Ann Cvetkovich, Simone Weil Davis, Lisa Duggan, Jane Gallop, Marjorie Garber, Janet R. Jakobsen, James R. Kincaid, Laura Kipnis, Tomasz Kitlinski, Pawel Leszkowicz, Joe Lockard, Catharine Lumby, Toby Miller, Dana D. Nelson, Anna Marie Smith, Ellen Willis, and Eli Zaretsky.

Transforming Ourselves, Transforming the World is an insightful collection that articulates how Jesuit colleges and universities create an educational community energized to transform the lives of its students, faculty, and administrators and to equip them to transform a broken world. The essays are rooted in Pedro Arrupe’s ideal of forming men and women for others and inspired by Peter-Hans Kolvenbach’s October 2000 address at Santa Clara in which he identified three areas where the promotion of justice may be manifested in our institutions: formation and learning, research and teaching, and our way of proceeding. Using the three areas laid out in Fr. Kolvenbach’s address as its organizing structure, this stimulating volume addresses the following challenges: How do we promote student life experiences and service? How does interdisciplinary collaborative research promote teaching and reflection? How do our institutions exemplify justice in their daily practices? Introductory pieces by internationally acclaimed authors such as Rev. Dean Brackley, S.J.; David J. O’Brien; Lisa Sowle Cahill; and Rev. Stephen A. Privett, S.J., pave the way for a range of smart and highly creative essays that illustrate and honor the scholarship, teaching, and service that have developed out of a commitment to the ideals of Jesuit higher education. The topics covered span disciplines and fields from the arts to engineering, from nursing to political science and law. The essays offer numerous examples of engaged pedagogy, which as Rev. Brackley points out fits squarely with Jesuit pedagogy: insertion programs, community-based learning, study abroad, internships, clinical placements, and other forms of interacting with the poor and with cultures other than our own. This book not only illustrates the dynamic growth of Jesuit education but critically identifies key challenges for educators, such as: How can we better address issues of race in our teaching and learning? Are we educating in nonviolence? How can we make the college or university “greener”? How can we evoke a desire for the faith that does justice? Transforming Ourselves, Transforming the World is an indispensable volume that has the potential to act as an academic facilitator for the promotion of justice within not only Jesuit schools but all schools of higher education.

The revised edition of Subject to Ourselves, a lively and provocative book that was a leader on its topic in England, uses psychoanalytic theory as the basis for a fresh reassessment of the nature of modernity and postmodernism. Analyzing changing experiences of selfhood, desire, interpersonal relations, culture and globalization, the author develops a novel account of postmodernity that supplants current understandings of "fragmented selves." Subject to Ourselves includes a diverse set of case studies, including the power of fantasy in military violence and war, the debate over sexual seduction in psychoanalysis, and the cultural uses of media and new information technologies. The book will be essential reading for students and professionals of social and political theory, psychoanalytic studies, psychology and cultural studies, as well as those with an interest in the modernity/postmodernity debate. Praise for the First Edition: 'This book not only fills an important gap in the literature, for it summarises a debate that is scattered across a decade of rather difficult texts, but also offers a resolution that is sensible and grounded in the best current thinking. It will be widely read by graduate students, faculty, and professionals in the humanities and social sciences.' Choice 'This is an informative and enjoyable book, which will be of use to students and academics...It is accessibly written and provides useful summaries of the different theories and debates in cultural and psychoanalytic theory. Recommended.' Radical Philosophy

The violence and destruction hiding behind the obsession with immunity Our contemporary political condition is obsessed with immunity. The immunity of bodies and the body politic; personal immunity and herd immunity; how to immunize the social system against breakdown. The obsession intensifies with every new crisis and the mobilization of yet more powers of war and police, from quarantine to border closures and from vaccination certificates to immunological surveillance. Engaging four key concepts with enormous cultural weight – Cell, Self, System and Sovereignty – Politics of Immunity moves from philosophical biology to intellectual history and from critical theory to psychoanalysis to expose the politics underpinning the way immunity is imagined. At the heart of this imagination is the way security has come to dominate the whole realm of human experience. From biological cell to political subject, and from physiological system to the social body, immunity folds into security, just as security folds into immunity. The book thus opens into a critique of the violence of security and spells out immunity’s tendency towards self-destruction and death: immunity, like security, can turn its aggression inwards, into the autoimmune disorder. Wide-ranging and polemical, Politics of Immunity lays down a major challenge to the ways in which the immunity of the self and the social are imagined.

"In The Political Thought of Henry David Thoreau, Jonathan McKenzie analyzes not only Thoreau's well-known works but also his journals and correspondence to provide a fresh portrait of the Sage of Walden as a radical individualist."--Provided by publisher.