The Material Unconscious

Within the ephemera of the everyday--old photographs, circus posters, iron toys--lies a challenge to America's dominant cultural memory. What this memory has left behind, Bill Brown recovers in the "material unconscious" of Stephen Crane's work, the textual residues of daily sensations that add up to a new history of the American 1890s. As revealed in Crane's disavowing appropriation of an emerging mass culture--from football games and freak shows to roller coasters and early cinema--the decade reappears as an underexposed moment in the genealogy of modernism and modernity. Brown's story begins on the Jersey Shore, in Asbury Park, where Crane became a writer in the shadow of his father, a grimly serious Methodist minister who vilified the popular amusements his son adored. The coastal resorts became the stage for debates about technology, about the body's visibility, about a black service class and the new mass access to leisure. From this snapshot of a recreational scene that would continue to inspire Crane's sensational modernism, Brown takes us to New York's Bowery. There, in the visual culture established by dime museums, minstrel shows, and the Kodak craze, he exhibits Crane dramatically obscuring the typology of race. Along the way, Brown demonstrates how attitudes toward play transformed the image of war, the idea of childhood and nationhood, and the concept of culture itself. And by developing a new conceptual apparatus (with such notions as "recreational time," "abstract leisure," and the "amusement/knowledge system"), he provides the groundwork for a new politics of pleasure. A crucial theorization of how cultural studies can and should proceed, The Material Unconscious insists that in the very conjuncture of canonical literature and mass culture, we can best understand how proliferating and competing economies of play disrupt the so-called "logic" and "work" of culture.

Within the ephemera of the everyday--old photographs, circus posters, iron toys--lies a challenge to America's dominant cultural memory. What this memory has left behind, Bill Brown recovers in the "material unconscious" of Stephen Crane's work, the textual residues of daily sensations that add up to a new history of the American 1890s. As revealed in Crane's disavowing appropriation of an emerging mass culture--from football games and freak shows to roller coasters and early cinema--the decade reappears as an underexposed moment in the genealogy of modernism and modernity. Brown's story begins on the Jersey Shore, in Asbury Park, where Crane became a writer in the shadow of his father, a grimly serious Methodist minister who vilified the popular amusements his son adored. The coastal resorts became the stage for debates about technology, about the body's visibility, about a black service class and the new mass access to leisure. From this snapshot of a recreational scene that would continue to inspire Crane's sensational modernism, Brown takes us to New York's Bowery. There, in the visual culture established by dime museums, minstrel shows, and the Kodak craze, he exhibits Crane dramatically obscuring the typology of race. Along the way, Brown demonstrates how attitudes toward play transformed the image of war, the idea of childhood and nationhood, and the concept of culture itself. And by developing a new conceptual apparatus (with such notions as "recreational time," "abstract leisure," and the "amusement/knowledge system"), he provides the groundwork for a new politics of pleasure. A crucial theorization of how cultural studies can and should proceed, The Material Unconscious insists that in the very conjuncture of canonical literature and mass culture, we can best understand how proliferating and competing economies of play disrupt the so-called "logic" and "work" of culture.

This book presents an ecocritical reading of DeLillo’s novels in an attempt to mediate between the seemingly incompatible influences of postmodernism and environmentalism. Martucci argues that although DeLillo is responding to and engaging with a postmodern culture of simulacra and simulation, his novels do not reflect a postmodernist theory of the "end of nature." Rather, his fiction emphasizes the lasting significance of the natural world and alerts us to the dangers of destroying it. In order to support this argument, Martucci examines DeLillo’s novels in the context of traditional American literary representations of the environment, especially through the lens of Leo Marx’s discussion of the conflict between technology and nature found in traditional American literature. She demonstrate that DeLillo’s fiction explores the way in which new technologies alter perceptions and mediate reality to a further extent than earlier technologies; however, she argues that he keeps the material world at the forefront of his novels, thereby illuminating the environmental implications of these technologies. Through close readings of Americana, The Names, White Noise, and Underworld, and discussions of postmodernist and ecocritical theories, this project engages with current criticism of DeLillo, postmodernist fiction, and environmental criticism.

This volume from the Collected Works of C.G. Jung has become known as perhaps the best introduction to Jung's work. In these famous essays he presented the essential core of his system. This is the first paperback publication of this key work in its revised and augmented second edition. The earliest versions of the essays are included in an Appendices, containing as they do the first tentative formulations of Jung's concept of archetypes and the collective unconscious, as well as his germinating theory of types.

The Most Important Knowledge and Findings The central ideas behind the books on brain psychology and linguistic brain therapy are aimed at helping psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, health workers, family members, and clients gain knowledge and methods to reduce or eliminate mental disorders. This leads to a better life for clients and more secure, satisfied therapists. Therapists and psychologists who achieve good results can confidently continue their treatment as before, while gaining a scientific understanding of the mental changes in their clients as they improve from the treatment. Therapists who are not as successful can now acquire scientifically grounded knowledge on how to achieve better outcomes. Family members will gain knowledge about mental disorders, enabling them to more effectively help their children. Those suffering from mental disorders can acquire knowledge and techniques that can alleviate their condition and create a life with less mental pain. These goals are achievable because the books on brain psychology and linguistic brain therapy contain scientific knowledge about the mental constructs that anchor and trigger mental distress or well-being. They also provide insights into how to protect against mental pain and manage it in the best possible way." The Significance of Research Early in my therapeutic practice, several clients achieved amazing results that psychology could not explain. This led to the initiation of an extensive research project. The research was met with skepticism, as many believed it was impossible to investigate what After 9 years of analyzing mental processes in clients, I discovered how mental disorders are mentally constructed and the mental changes clients experience when they improve from treatment. One conclusion was that all mental disorders can be cured using words, though it may take time. These findings represented a solution to challenges that psychology and psychiatry had been trying to solve for over 150 years. Significant Discoveries: I found that mental disorders are mentally constructed more simply than previously believed by researchers, psychologists, and psychiatrists. It is possible to investigate mental processes leading to mental distress and the experience of mental distress solely through words. Mental well-being and mental disorders are constructed of the same mental or mental-biological material, and in the same manner, allowing the same methods to be used to treat mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia, as well as to develop mental well-being and skills." "I Now Know for Sure I am now certain that knowledge of brain psychology and linguistic therapy can lead those with mental distress to take more control over their emotions and mental problems. Additionally, psychologists and health workers can treat clients with greater scientific certainty and predictability, achieving faster and better results. The most reliable evidence of this includes success stories from clients, comments from international scientific journals, and observations from colleagues who have observed my work with students' mental distress over many years. After 30 years of research and treating more than 1000 clients, I am convinced that linguistic brain therapy not only helps individuals but also enables those who have studied the books to help others, whether as clients, parents, leaders, trainers, or other psychologists. For more information, visit the website: www.brainpsychology.pro." "Simple, but not Easy The book 'Linguistic Brain Therapy' explains how to treat clients in a way that helps them become mentally stronger, feel better about themselves, and more effectively take control of their lives. "The Books Offer the Necessary Knowledge The book on the Psychology of the Brain provides the essential knowledge needed to understand what happens mentally during the development of mental disorders. 'Linguistic Brain Therapy', based on Brain Psychology knowledge, guides therapists, consultants, leaders, parents, and health workers on how to treat clients and assist both themselves and others. For more information, you can read my doctoral dissertation on mental distress and mental change, available at the University Library in Oslo. Are These Claims True? The books on brain psychology and linguistic brain therapy are the strongest evidence supporting the claims mentioned above. Practical evidence like success stories from clients, and research findings will be shared on my websites in the future: www.brainpsychology.pro If you are facing mental challenges, whether as a scientist, someone experiencing mental distress, an athlete, as a health worker or in any other role where you feel you are not coping well, you may explore brain psychology and linguistic therapy for help. These books can provide you and others with a better life for many years. The books focus on positive emotions , on mental resources, and how the clients can cope better with mental disorders, and on how to treat light mental disorders and more heavy mental ailments.

Material Cultures in Canada presents the vibrant and diverse field of material culture studies in Canadian literary, artistic, and political contexts today. The first of its kind, this collection features sixteen essays by leading scholars in Canada, each of whom examines a different object of study, including the beaver, geraniums, comics, water, a musical playlist, and the human body. The book’s three sections focus, in turn, on objects that are persistently material, on things whose materiality blends into the immaterial, and on the materials of spaces. Contributors highlight some of the most exciting new developments in the field, such as the emergence of “new materialism,” affect theory, globalization studies, and environmental criticism. Although the book has a Canadian centre, the majority of its contributors consider objects that cross borders or otherwise resist national affiliation. This collection will be valuable to readers within and outside of Canada who are interested in material culture studies and, in addition, will appeal to anyone interested in the central debates taking place in Canadian political and cultural life today, such as climate change, citizenship, shifts in urban and small-town life, and the persistence of imperialism.

From the pencil to the puppet to the drone—the humanities and the social sciences continue to ride a wave of interest in material culture and the world of things. How should we understand the force and figure of that wave as it shapes different disciplines? Other Things explores this question by considering a wide assortment of objects—from beach glass to cell phones, sneakers to skyscrapers—that have fascinated a range of writers and artists, including Virginia Woolf, Man Ray, Spike Lee, and Don DeLillo. The book ranges across the literary, visual, and plastic arts to depict the curious lives of things. Beginning with Achilles’s Shield, then tracking the object/thing distinction as it appears in the work of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Lacan, Bill Brown ultimately focuses on the thingness disclosed by specific literary and artistic works. Combining history and literature, criticism and theory, Other Things provides a new way of understanding the inanimate object world and the place of the human within it, encouraging us to think anew about what we mean by materiality itself.