Complicities

DIVA theoretically informed study of five major pro- and anti-apartheid intellectuals, showing the inevitability of complex and compromised positions, and the impossibility of pure ones./div

This Open Access book offers a model of the human subject as complicit in the systems that structure human society and the human psyche which draws together clinical research with theory from both psychology and the humanities to advance a more social just theory and practice. Beginning from the premise that we cannot separate ourselves from the systems that precede and formulate us as subjects, the author argues that, in reckoning with this complicity, a model of subjectivity can be created that moves beyond binaries and identity politics. In doing so, the book examines how we might develop a more socially just psychological theory and practice, which is both systems work and intra-psychological work. In bringing together ways of thinking developed in the humanities with clinical psychotherapeutic practice, this book offers one interdisciplinary take on key questions of social and emotional efficacy in action-oriented psychotherapy work.

“ELECTRIFYING—A TREASURED WRITER WORKING AT THE HEIGHT OF HER POWERS.” —Laura van den Berg, author of I Hold a Wolf by the Ears A haunting and emotionally fraught story of a woman dealing with the ripple effects of her husband’s financial fraud—and with what she knew, or pretended not to know, about it After her husband Alan’s massive white-collar crimes are exposed, Suzanne’s wealthy, com­fortable life shatters: Alan goes to prison, and Suzanne files for divorce. Ignoring a steady stream of calls from her ex at Norfolk State Prison, Suzanne thinks she can cleanse herself of all connections to her ex-husband and their old life together. Instead, she decamps to a Massachusetts beach town where she creates a new life and identity. Then Alan is released early, and the many peo­ple whose lives he has ruined demand restitution. At the same time, awestruck and obsessed by the spectacle of a major whale stranding on a beach near her home, Suzanne makes an apparently high-minded decision that in turn reverberates not only through Alan’s life as he tries to rebuild but also through the lives of their son, Alan’s new wife, his estranged mother, and, ultimately, Suzanne herself. A resonant and bitingly perceptive story about the people next to the bad guys—the queasy and ambiguous territory people like Suzanne inhabit as they stand by, and the ways in which they try to thread the needle of their culpability—The Complicities is a searing look at moral responsi­bility, and about who, in the end, pays for a crime.

The editors (affiliated with the department of English language and literature, National U. of Singapore present 29 selected papers from the 9th Biennial Symposium on the Literatures and Cultures of the Asia-Pacific Region. The theme of the symposium was "complicity" in the age of globalization, carrying both negative and positive connotations of "compromises" and "resistances" in literature and culture. Examining Asian-Pacific literatures in English, the papers engage the concept of complicitousness in a range of dimensions. The papers are grouped into sections that are broadly categorized in terms of Asia-Pacific relations; the politics of identity; and language, gender, and empowerment. Annotation : 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

As the People's Republic of China has grown in economic power, so too have concerns about what its sustained growth and expanding global influence might mean for the established global order. Explorations of this changing dynamic in daily reporting as well as most recent scholarship ignore the part played by forces emanating from the global capitalist system in the PRC's failures as well as its successes. China scholar Arif Dirlik reflects in Complicities on a wide range of concerns, from the Tiananmen Square tragedy to the spread of Confucius Institutes across more than four hundred campuses worldwide, including nearly one hundred in the United States. Eschewing popular stereotypes and simple explanations, Dirlik's discussion stresses foreign complicity in encouraging the PRC's imperial ambitions and disdain for human rights. Eager for economic gain, the United States, Europe, and other Western countries have been complicit in supporting the PRC's authoritarian capitalism. Such support has been a key factor in nourishing the PRC's hegemonic aspirations. Infatuation with the PRC's incorporation in global capitalism has been important to Communist Party leaders' ability to suppress all memory and mention of Tiananmen, and their continuing abuse of human rights. More recently, the PRC's focus has migrated to "soft power" as a means of expanding global influence, with organizations like the Confucius Institutes exploiting foreign educational institutions to promote the political aims of the state.

In Scotland, a self-appointed executioner dispenses justice to fit the crime. Thus the lenient judge who let a rapist go is punished by being raped, while a man who killed is killed in turn. By the author of The Wasp Factory.

Considers how mates jointly create a setting for sharing love and defending against the fear of loving. The authors have integrated theory and practice in their description of six desirable objectives couples can plan to attain over a lifetime.

Hanneke Stuit delves into Ubuntu's relevance both in South Africa and in Western contexts, analyzing the political and ethical ramifications of the term's uses in different media including literature, cartoons, journalistic fiction, commercials, commodities, photography, and political manifestos in contemporary South African culture.