The Bonds Of Love

Why do people submit to authority and derive pleasure even others have over them? What is the appeal of domination and submission, and why are they so prevalent in erotic life? Why is it so difficult for men and women to meet as equals? Why, indeed, do hey continue to recapitulate the positions of master and slave? In The Bonds of Love, noted feminist theorist and psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin explains why we accept and perpetuate relationships of domination and submission. She reveals that domination is a complex psychological process which ensnares both parties in bonds of complicity, and shows how it underlies our family life, our social institutions, and especially our sexual relations, in spite of our conscious commitment to equality and freedom.

Jessica Benjamin is one of the most important and influential psychoanalysts of the last 4 decades. She is one of the founders of relational psychoanalysis, a movement that has by now expanded over the globe and was also one of the first to introduce feminism and gender studies into psychoanalytic thought. Jessica Benjamin is the most known and quoted representative of these two movements within world psychoanalysis and beyond, in philosophy, gender/women’s studies, and cultural studies department everywhere. The publication of her book, "Bonds of Love" (1989) was nothing short of a revolution. Psychoanalysis was until then a field immune to a changing world, to the unrest of the 60s, to the feminist and queer liberation movements, to the new philosophies of the Frankfurt School in Germany and post-structuralism in France. The book was a game changer. It called psychoanalysis to doubt its most basic premises on the human condition. It read Freud through a feminist framework, and through Hegel, forever tipping our perspective on infancy, gender, and the interplay of power and dependence that drives human relationships from the start. This volume marks the 25th anniversary of Benjamin’s work. Pulling together 15 international scholars, it looks back on the book's first impact, as well as on its continued relevance to psychoanalysis and gender studies today. Chapters offer theoretical deliberations and elaborations of the book's original themes as well as reflecting on it from more intimate angles, as a source of personal and professional inspiration for feminists and clinicians around the world. This book was originally published as a special issue of Studies in Gender and Sexuality.

Twelve stories of wayward travelers. Twelve stamps on the passport of the soul. Walter struggles to see past his disfigurement, but a trip to Thailand and a mysterious woman may challenge his quest for perfection. Married to a workaholic, Leslie is accustomed to solitude until her overbearing Indian mother-in-law turns her kitchen into a verbal battlefield. A woman looks for the perfect souvenir in the Turkish Bazaar and instead finds a passionate love affair. From ice storms in Maine to swimming pools in Vera Cruz, errant souls must grapple with past baggage to forge profound connections and a new sense of direction. At home and abroad, solitary travelers embark on journeys that take them where they never expected to go. Bonds of Love & Blood is a poignant collection of award-winning stories featuring life’s unexpected arrivals and departures. If you like intimate accounts of lives at the crossroads, vibrant portrayals of global locales, and elegantly-crafted prose, then you'll love Marylee MacDonald's compelling tales of travel. Buy Bonds of Love & Blood to embark on a heart-wrenching journey of love, loss, and redemption today!

This book is about the central figure of our contemporary, ‘liquid modern’ times – the man or woman with no bonds, and particularly with none of the fixed or durable bonds that would allow the effort of self-definition and self-assertion to come to a rest. Having no permanent bonds, the denizen of our liquid modern society must tie whatever bonds they can to engage with others, using their own wits, skill and dedication. But none of these bonds are guaranteed to last. Moreover, they must be tied loosely so that they can be untied again, quickly and as effortlessly as possible, when circumstances change – as they surely will in our liquid modern society, over and over again. The uncanny frailty of human bonds, the feeling of insecurity that frailty inspires, and the conflicting desires to tighten the bonds yet keep them loose, are the principal themes of this important new book by Zygmunt Bauman, one of the most original and influential social thinkers of our time. It will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology and in the social sciences and humanities generally, and it will appeal to anyone interested in the changing nature of human relationships.

"Beautiful Ranmaru and sweet, serene Kei fell in love at first sight when they were just boys, and now that they're finally old enough, they're moving in together! College should be all about new experiences and freedom-- but what will the couple do when their home-sweet-home is invaded by the brash and spoiled Kai, Kei's half-brother? Is their relationship strong enough to weather a sudden storm of sibling rivalry?"--Publisher's web site.

In this important book, a well-known psychoanalyst and feminist makes a case for what she calls "gender heterodoxy"-a highly original view of the similarities and differences between the sexes-and, in the process, illuminates aspects of love, sexuality, aggression, and pornography.

"Explores the spirituality of St. Peter Damian, a reformer of church and society in the Middle Ages; explores tension between a call to solitude and holiness and a call to prophetic social and ecclesial engagement"--

Bonds of love offers a fresh interpretation of a selection of prophetic texts that present the covenant relationship as a marital relationship. The accent in this study is on method: historical and biographical categories such as ‘the prophet’ and ‘his career’ are left aside in order to concentrate on the composition and internal cohesion of the text. The reading strategy developed in this book is both synchronic and communication-oriented. Since prophetic texts essentially consist of speech, it is insufficient to study the text in abstraction from the audience that it addresses. The texts have a communication purpose, and a three-part model is developed in order to investigate the communication effects of the text on the implied audience and the contemporary reader. The studies of Isaiah 50 and 54, Hosea 1-3 and Jeremiah 2-3 reveal that a synchronic interpretation of these texts can be very fruitful. Larger patterns of coherence come to the surface when one refrains from the procedure of atomizing the texts in original and secondary parts.The final chapter is devoted to the theological implications of the marriage imagery. What intriguing model of divine and human partnership is presented here? And what sort of intimate interaction between Yhwh and Israel is precisely envisioned?