A powerful theory of the symbolic embedded within a remarkable and original theory of practice is a nodal aspect of the work of Pierre Bourdieu, who was a leading social thinker of our times (1930-2002). Against the backdrop of the significance of symbolic practice in social life, this book explains the intellectual warp and woof of his theory of the symbolic; presents a brief excursus that explores its potential to illuminate social contexts other than those in which it was conceived; examines its links with Bourdieu's role of social critic and public intellectual; and engages critically with scholarly assessments of his contribution. The book thus seeks to provide a comprehensive and in depth analysis and understanding of a central dimension of Bourdieu's work.
Despite all efforts to promote change, power and authority still seem to be permanently associated with the white, the straight and the masculine, both symbolically and in the everyday world of organizations. This collection proposes a transdisciplinary feminist perspective to explore the complex nature of the gendered politics of organizations.
Our usual representations of the opposition between the "civilized" and the "primitive" derive from willfully ignoring the relationship of distance our social science sets up between the observer and the observed. In fact, the author argues, the relationship between the anthropologist and his object of study is a particular instance of the relationship between knowing and doing, interpreting and using, symbolic mastery and practical masteryor between logical logic, armed with all the accumulated instruments of objectification, and the universally pre-logical logic of practice. In this, his fullest statement of a theory of practice, Bourdieu both sets out what might be involved in incorporating one's own standpoint into an investigation and develops his understanding of the powers inherent in the second member of many oppositional pairsthat is, he explicates how the practical concerns of daily life condition the transmission and functioning of social or cultural forms. The first part of the book, "Critique of Theoretical Reason," covers more general questions, such as the objectivization of the generic relationship between social scientific observers and their objects of study, the need to overcome the gulf between subjectivism and objectivism, the interplay between structure and practice (a phenomenon Bourdieu describes via his concept of the habitus), the place of the body, the manipulation of time, varieties of symbolic capital, and modes of domination. The second part of the book, "Practical Logics," develops detailed case studies based on Bourdieu's ethnographic fieldwork in Algeria. These examples touch on kinship patterns, the social construction of domestic space, social categories of perception and classification, and ritualized actions and exchanges. This book develops in full detail the theoretical positions sketched in Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice. It will be especially useful to readers seeking to grasp the subtle concepts central to Bourdieu's theory, to theorists interested in his points of departure from structuralism (especially fom Lévi-Strauss), and to critics eager to understand what role his theory gives to human agency. It also reveals Bourdieu to be an anthropological theorist of considerable originality and power.
This first volume in the series "Algorithms and Computation in Mathematics", is destined to become the standard reference work in the field. Manuel Bronstein is the number-one expert on this topic and his book is the first to treat the subject both comprehensively and in sufficient detail - incorporating new results along the way. The book addresses mathematicians and computer scientists interested in symbolic computation, developers and programmers of computer algebra systems as well as users of symbolic integration methods. Many algorithms are given in pseudocode ready for immediate implementation, making the book equally suitable as a textbook for lecture courses on symbolic integration.
"The main thrust of this book is to deliver a major critique of materialist and rationalist explanations of social and cultural forms, but the in the process Sahlins has given us a much stronger statement of the centrality of symbols in human affairs than have many of our 'practicing' symbolic anthropologists. He demonstrates that symbols enter all phases of social life: those which we tend to regard as strictly pragmatic, or based on concerns with material need or advantage, as well as those which we tend to view as purely symbolic, such as ideology, ritual, myth, moral codes, and the like. . . ."—Robert McKinley, Reviews in Anthropology
This text presents a new approach to healing and personal growth. Developed from her own counselling practice, the author offers a method for coping with a wide range of emotional and physical problems. By learning how to access the inner wisdom found within us all, the book aims to help overcome depression, weight problems, lack of confidence, even financial problems.
Symbolic and Clinical Approaches in Theory and Practiceedited by Luigi Zoja and Robert HinshawThis handsome volume, drawn from the Ninth International Congress of Analytical Psychology in Jerusalem, contains contributions reflecting on the meaning and significance of contemporary analytical work from 25 prominent Jungian analysts from around the world. Among the authors are Alfred Ziegler and Adolph Guggenbühl-Craig from Zürich, Rafael López-Pedraza from Caracas, and Aldo Carotenuto from Rome.Also available:San Francisco 1980Money, Food, Drink and Fashion, and Analytic TrainingProceedings of the 8th International Congress of the International Association for Analytical Psychology, edited by John BeebeThese proceedings from the 1980 San Francisco Congress of the IAAP have long been unavailable. Now a few last copies have been found and will be offered either singly or as a part of a package discount.From the Contents: A Contribution to Soul and Money by James Hillman; Projections: Soul and Money by Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig; The Training of Shadow and The Shadow of Training by Patricia Berry;The Hydrolith: On Drinking and Dryness in Archetypal Medicine by Alfred Ziegler; Fragmentary Vision: A Central Training Aim by Andrew Samuels; The Concealed Body Language of Anorexia Nervosa by Bani Shorter.ISBN 3-87089-304-4
Why do people record TV programmes instead of watching them? Why are former alcoholics pleased to let other people drink in their place? Why can ritual machines pray in place of believers? Robert Pfaller advances the theory of 'interpassivity' as delegated consumption and enjoyment. Applicable to both art and everyday life, the concept allows him to tackle a vast range of phenomena: culture, art, sports and religion. Pfaller criticises dominant assumptions, offers an escape from prevailing ideologies and exposes how cultural capitalism promotes commodities with the promise of happiness.
