Offering a uniquely 'psycho-cultural' take on the emotional dynamics of UK political culture this book uses theories and research in psychoanalysis, cultural and media studies and political sociology. It explores the cultural and emotional processes that shape our relationship to politics in a media age, referencing Joanna Lumley to Nigel Farage.
Offering a uniquely 'psycho-cultural' take on the emotional dynamics of UK political culture this book uses theories and research in psychoanalysis, cultural and media studies and political sociology. It explores the cultural and emotional processes that shape our relationship to politics in a media age, referencing Joanna Lumley to Nigel Farage.
Emotions work to define who we are as well as shape what we do and this is no more powerfully at play than in the world of politics. Ahmed considers how emotions keep us invested in relationships of power, and also shows how this use of emotion could be crucial to areas such as feminist and queer politics. Debates on international terrorism, asylum and migration, as well as reconciliation and reparation, are explored through topical case studies. In this book the difficult issues are confronted head on. The Cultural Politics of Emotion is in dialogue with recent literature on emotions within gender studies, cultural studies, sociology, psychology and philosophy. Throughout the book, Ahmed develops a theory of how emotions work, and the effects they have on our day-to-day lives. New for this editionA substantial 15,000-word Afterword on 'Emotions and Their Objects' which provides an original contribution to the burgeoning field of affect studiesA revised BibliographyUpdated throughout.
The Political Sociology of Emotions articulates the political sociology of emotions as a sub-field of emotions sociology in relation to cognate disciplines and sub-disciplines. Far from reducing politics to affectivity, the political sociology of emotions is coterminous with political sociology itself plus the emotive angle added in the investigation of its traditional and more recent areas of research. The worldwide predominance of affective anti-politics (e.g., the securitization of immigration policies, reactionism, terrorism, competitive authoritarianism, nationalism and populism, etc.) makes the political sociology of emotions increasingly necessary in making the prospects of democracy and republicanism in the twenty-first century more intelligible. Through a weak constructionist theoretical perspective, the book shows the utility of this new sub-field by addressing two central themes: trauma and ressentiment. Trauma is considered as a key cultural-political phenomenon of our times, evoking both negative and positive emotions; ressentiment is a pertaining individual and collective political emotion allied to insecurities and moral injuries. In tandem, they constitute fundamental experiences of late modern times. The value of the political sociology of emotions is revealed in the analysis of civil wars, cultural traumas, the politics of pity, the suffering of distant others in the media, populism, and national identities on both sides of the Atlantic.
The emerging field of ‘psychoanalytic political theory’ has now reached a stage in its development and rapid evolution that deserves to be registered, systematically defined and critically evaluated. This Handbook provides the first reference volume which showcases the current state of psychoanalytic political theory, maps the genealogy of its development, identifies its conceptual and methodological resources and highlights its analytical innovations as well as its critical promise. The Handbook consists of 35 chapters offering original, comprehensive and critical reviews of this field of study. The chapters are divided into five thematic sections: Figures discusses the work of major psychoanalytic theorists who have influenced considerably the development of psychoanalytic political theory. Traditions genealogically recounts and critically reassesses the many attempts throughout the 20th century of experimenting with the articulation between psychoanalysis and political theory in a consistent way. Concepts asks what are the concepts that psychoanalysis offers for appropriation by political theory. Themes presents concrete examples of the ways in which psychoanalytic political theory can be productively applied in the analysis of racism, gender, nationalism, consumerism, etc. Challenges/Controversies captures the ways in which psychoanalytic political theory can lead the way towards theoretical and analytical innovation in many disciplinary fields dealing with cutting-edge issues. The Routledge Handbook of Psychoanalytic Political Theory will serve as scholarly reference volume for all students and researchers studying political theory, psychoanalysis, and the history of ideas.
How do some political leaders capture popular support? What is the appeal of belonging to a nation? Can democracy thrive? The Psychology of Politics explores how the emotions which underpin everyday life are also vital in what happens on the political stage. It draws on psychoanalytic ideas to show how fear and passion shape the political sphere in our changing societies and cultures, and examines topical social issues and events including Brexit, the changing nature of democracy, activism, and Trump in America. In a changing global political climate, The Psychology of Politics shows us how we can make sense of what drives human conduct in relation to political ideas and action.
This significant reassessment of Jacobean political culture reveals how colonizing America transformed English civility in early seventeenth-century England. This title is also available as Open Access.
Genealogies of Emotions, Intimacies and Desire excavates epistemologies which attempt to explain changes in emotional regimes from medieval society to late modernity. Key in this debate is the concept of intimacy. The book shows that different historical periods are characterized by emotional regimes where intimacy in the form of desire, sex, passion, and sex largely exist outside marriage, and that marriage and traditional normative values and structures are fundamentally incompatible with the expression of intimacy in the history of emotional regimes. The book draws on the work of a number of theorists who assess change in emotional regimes by drawing on intimacy including Michel Foucault, Eva Illouz, Lauren Berlant, Anthony Giddens, Laura Ann Stoler, Anne McClintock, Niklas Luhmann and David Shumway. Some of the areas covered by the book include: Foucault, sex and sexuality; romantic and courtly love; intimacy in late modernity; Imperial power, gender and intimacy, intimacy and feminist interventions; and the commercialization of intimacy. This book will appeal to students and scholars in the social sciences and humanities, including sociology, gender studies, cultural studies, and literary studies.
This major international text introduces the key themes, issues and theoretical approaches in the field. A central concern is to put the politics back into the study of communication by posing key critical questions about power and ideology: what is being communicated, by whom, how, in whose interests, and with what effects and implications?
This book locates internally focused, critical perspectives regarding the social, political, emotional, and mental growth of children. Through the radical openness afforded by psychoanalytic and related frameworks, this volume illuminates, promotes, and helps situate subjectivities that are often blotted out for both the child and society. The overall emphasis is on motifs of lostness and foundness, in terms of the geographies of the psycho-social, and how such motifs govern and regulate what have come to count as the normative indexes of childhood as well as how they exclude other real childhoods.
