Product Description: In our turbulent world of global flows and digital transformations pervasive identity crises and self-reinvention have become increasingly central to everyday life. In this fascinating book, Anthony Elliott shows how global transformations – the new electronic economy, digital worlds, biotechnologies and artificial intelligence - generatesa metamorphosis across the force-field of identities today...read more

What reviewers said about the first edition."I enthusiastically recommend this important book. It will stimulate much needed reaction and interaction among students of psychoanalysis, psychology, social theory, cultural studies and politics." Contemporary Psychology"An interestingly comprehensive book on psychoanalysis and its bearing on social challenge and change." Radical Philosophy"Anthony Elliott opts for a vigorously critical synoptic view, attempting to present both the strengths and weaknesses of classical psychoanalysis, ego psychology, object relations theory, Klienian theory, Lacanian and post-Lacanian theory. In this book he strives to articulate the positive contribution of all branches, but he also searches deftly for the blind spots and problems of each psychoanalytic school." Hysteria: Body, Medicine, Text"Anthony Elliott is quickly emerging as a one-person industry, intent in all of his writings to demonstrate both the relevance and the importance of psychoanalytic theory for critical social analysis...Psychoanalytic Theory is more than an introduction in the conventional sense...Elliott is boldly attempting to restore psychoanalysis relevant to a critical social theory but fundamentally respectful of human capacity for change and self-transformation." Thesis Eleven"Elliott succeeds, in Psychoanalytic Theory, in showing that psychoanalytic theorists must explain not only how numerous cultural processes and social intsitutions structure the subject, but how the subject can meaningfully structure culture and social institutions...Elliott is especially attentive to postmodern challenges of notions of the self and self-knowledge, as well as to the responsive critiques of postmodernism within psychoanalytic theory." Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and SocietyANTHONY ELLIOTTt is Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of the West of England. He was formerly ARC Research Fellow in the Department of Political Science, University of Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of The Mourning of John Lennon, Social Theory and Psychoanalysis in Transition (Free Association Books), Concepts of the Self (forthcoming from Polity), editor of The Blackwell Reader in Contemporary Social Theory, Profiles in Contemporary Social Theory (Sage, with Bryan Turner) and Freud 2000 (Polity).

Product Description: A term of antique provenance, ‘identity’ has developed and cohered into a critical concept in contemporary social and cultural analysis. However, the daunting quantity (and variable quality) of the available research exploring the many, often controversial, issues attendant upon identity―and the breadth and complexity of the canon on which it draws―makes it difficult to discriminate the useful from the tendentious, superficial, and otiose...read more

Product Description: In this comprehensive, stylish and accessible introduction to contemporary social theory, Anthony Elliott examines the major social theoretical traditions. The first edition set new standards for introductory textbooks, such was the far-reaching sweep of social theorists discussed – including Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu, Julia Kristeva, Jurgen Habermas, Judith Butler, Slavoj Zizek, Manuel Castells, Ulrich Beck, Zygmunt Bauman, Giorgio Agamben and Manuel De Landa...read more

Product Description: More than ten years on from its original publication, Concepts of the Self still mesmerizes with its insight, comprehensiveness and critique of debates over the self in the social sciences and humanities. Anthony Elliott has written a new preface to this third edition to address some of the most recent developments in the field, and offers a powerful challenge to what he describes as ‘the emergence of anti-theories of the self’...read more

Product Description: The Routledge Handbook of Psychoanalysis in the Social Sciences and Humanities provides a comprehensive, critical overview of the historical, theoretical and applied forms of psychoanalytical criticism. This path-breaking Handbook offers students new ways of understanding the powers and limits of psychoanalysis, and of the social, cultural and political possibilities of psychoanalytic critique...read more

Product Description: Ours is the era of ‘reinvention’. From psychotherapy to life coaching, from self-help manuals to cosmetic surgery, and from corporate rebranding to urban redesign: the art of reinvention is inextricably interwoven with the lure of the next frontier, the breakthrough to the next boundary – especially boundaries of the self...read more

The Routledge Handbook of Identity Studies offers an exceptionally clear overview of the analysis of identity in the social sciences, and in so doing seeks to develop a new agenda for identity-studies in the twenty-first century. The key theories of identity, ranging from classical accounts to postmodern, psychoanalytic and feminist approaches, are drawn together and critically appraised, and there are substantive sections looking at racial, ethnic, gendered, queer, consumerist, virtual and global identities. The Handbook also makes an essential contribution to the debate now opening up over identity-politics and its cultural consequences. From anti-globalization protestors to new ecological warriors, from devotees of therapy culture to defenders of international human rights: the culture of identity-politics is fast redefining the public political sphere. What future for politics is there after the turn to identity? Throughout there is a strong emphasis on interdisciplinarity with essays covering sociology, psychology, politics, cultural studies and history. The Handbook’s clear and direct style will appeal to a wide undergraduate audience in the social sciences and humanities.

The Routledge Companion to Social Theory provides an authoritative, comprehensive and provocative introduction to the key traditions of thought in social theory today. This ground-breaking reference work brings together major contributors, both established and emergent new voices, to reflect on the ways in which social theory sheds light on the contemporary social world. Represented are: the traditions of classical social thought symbolic interactionism psychoanalysis structuralism, post-structuralism and postmodernism identity theories globalization theories. The Routledge Companion to Social Theory is designed to give a sense of the complexities of both classical and contemporary social theory. Including a helpful glossary of key terms and theorists, this accessible guide is essential reading for students and professionals in social theory, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies, women’s studies and politics.

Product Description: Expected to become a classic in the field and the classroom standard for teachers and their students, this book offers the most comprehensive, engaging selection of classic and contemporary readings on globalization currently available...read more

Product Description: El auge de la cirugia estetica: como reinventarnos para dar la talla. De Los angeles a Londres, de Madrid a Mexico, de Tokyo a Teheran, la demanda de cirugia estetica no deja de crecer. Inyecciones de botox, rellenos de colageno, implantes mamarios, liftings faciales: la remodelacion extrema del propio cuerpo hace furor...read more

Product Description: Whilst undoubtedly one of the most controversial but also most established issues in research and debate within the contemporary social and human sciences, as well as in cultural studies, work on 'identity' has undergone dramatic changes in recent years...read more

Product Description: This text covers Bauman’s contribution to sociology and social theory. This ideal teaching text analyzes Bauman's shift from a sociology of postmodernity to liquid modernity, and provides a critical assessment of the contemporary Bauman, appraising his novel theory of liquid modernity in terms of its implications for self-identity, interpersonal relationships, culture, communications, and the broad-ranging institutional transformations associated with globalization...read more

Product Description: From London to New York, Madrid to Melbourne, Singapore to Tehran, the demand for cosmetic surgery is soaring. Botox injections, collagen fillers, breast implants, microdermabrasion, mini face-lifts: extreme reinvention is all the rage...read more

Product Description: In this compelling book, Anthony Elliott traces the rise of psychoanalysis from the Frankfurt School to postmodernism. Examining how pathbreaking theorists such as Adorno, Marcuse, Lacan and Lyotard have deployed psychoanalysis to politicise issues such as desire, sexuality, repression and identity, Elliott assesses the gains and losses arising from this appropriation of psychoanalysis in social theory and cultural studies...read more

Product Description: 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...read more

In this remarkable book, Anthony Elliott develops a wide-ranging analysis of key issues and debates in contemporary social theory. Drawing social theory, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis together in a bold configuration, Elliott challenges the widespread view that social theory seems to have lost its way as a result of the diversification of conceptual approaches. In outlining an approach that places imagination and creativity at the center of social theory, Elliott argues that theoretical pluralism―from post-structuralism to postmodernism, from psychoanalysis to deconstruction―represents not the demise, but the renewal of critical social theory.Elliott opens with critical readings of the terrain of contemporary social theory and theorists, among them Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, Jurgen Habermas, Jacques Lacan, Cornelius Castoriadis, and Julia Kristeva. He follows with an analysis of key debates in critical social theory. Questions relating to the globalization of risk, citizenship, morality and ethics, politics and norms, and sexuality and desire are all explored. This book is essential reading for students seeking a broad understanding of the confluence of sociology, social theory, politics, and cultural studies.

Introduces the concepts of social theory and social science and offers a review of key figures in sociology, philosophy, and political thought of the twentieth century.

Product Description: Has psychoanalysis become postmodern? How are the various schools of psychoanalysis being altered by postmodernism? What role does psychoanalysis have to play in the cultural debate in postmodern times? Psychoanalysis at its Limits offers a stimulating account of the complex and contradictory nature of psychoanalysis in the postmodern age...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)