Transitional Subjects (eBook)

Transitional Subjects is the first book-length collection devoted to the engagement of critical theory with the work of the object-relations school of psychoanalysis. It provides a synoptic overview of current research at the intersection of these two theoretical traditions while also opening up space for further innovations.

AllenAmy: Amy Allen (PhD, Philosophy, Northwestern) is Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and head of the Philosophy Department at the Pennsylvania State University. Her publications include The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (Columbia, 2016) and The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory (Columbia, 2007). She is also the editor of the Columbia series New Directions in Critical Theory. She specializes in critical social theory, feminist theory, and 20th-century continental philosophy.O'ConnorBrian: Brian O'Connor (PhD, Philosophy, Oxford) is Professor of Philosophy at University College Dublin. He is the author of Idleness: A Philosophical Essay (Princeton, 2018), Adorno (Routledge, 2013), and Adorno's Negative Dialectic: Philosophy and the Possibility of a Critical Rationality (MIT, 2004), the editor of The Adorno Reader (Blackwell, 2000), and the coeditor (with Georg Mohr) of German Idealism: An Anthology and Guide (Chicago, 2007). His research focuses on critical theory and German idealism.AllenAmy: Amy Allen (PhD, Philosophy, Northwestern) is Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and head of the Philosophy Department at the Pennsylvania State University. Her publications include The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (Columbia, 2016) and The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory (Columbia, 2007). She is also the editor of the Columbia series New Directions in Critical Theory. She specializes in critical social theory, feminist theory, and 20th-century continental philosophy.Amy Allen is Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and head of the Department of Philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University. Her books include, most recently, The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (Columbia, 2016).Brian O'Connor is professor of philosophy at University College Dublin. His books include Adorno (2013) and Idleness: A Philosophical Essay (2018).

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Critical social theory has long been marked by a deep, creative, and productive relationship with psychoanalysis. Whereas Freud and Fromm were important cornerstones for the early Frankfurt School, recent thinkers have drawn on the object-relations school of psychoanalysis. Transitional Subjects is the first book-length collection devoted to the engagement of critical theory with the work of Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, and other members of this school. Featuring contributions from some of the leading figures working in both of these fields, including Axel Honneth, Joel Whitebook, Noelle McAfee, Sara Beardsworth, and C. Fred Alford, it provides a synoptic overview of current research at the intersection of these two theoretical traditions while also opening up space for further innovations.Transitional Subjects offers a range of perspectives on the critical potential of object-relations psychoanalysis, including feminist and Marxist views, to offer valuable insight into such fraught social issues as aggression, narcissism, "e;progress,"e; and torture. The productive dialogue that emerges augments our understanding of the self as intersubjectively and socially constituted and of contemporary "e;social pathologies."e; Transitional Subjects shows how critical theory and object-relations psychoanalysis, considered together, have not only enriched critical theory but also invigorated psychoanalysis.