This collection revises subjectivity in the light of postmodern theories of the subject. The contributors gathered here present and discuss a number of different, but interrelated, subjectivities. As such, they reconceptualize the theory of subjectivity according to various texts and contexts, such as the subjectivity of discourses, the subject under subjugation, and the intersubjective construction of the other. It introduces a dynamic subjectivity to minority literature, colonial/postcolonial texts, and travel literature, to name but a few. The dynamics of intersubjectivity provide a space for subjectivities to negotiate and interrelate. Moreover, this collection shows that intersubjectivity is hybrid, yet flexible, by nature.

This collection revises subjectivity in the light of postmodern theories of the subject. The contributors gathered here present and discuss a number of different, but interrelated, subjectivities. As such, they reconceptualize the theory of subjectivity according to various texts and contexts, such as the subjectivity of discourses, the subject under subjugation, and the intersubjective construction of the other. It introduces a dynamic subjectivity to minority literature, colonial/postcolonial texts, and travel literature, to name but a few. The dynamics of intersubjectivity provide a space for subjectivities to negotiate and interrelate. Moreover, this collection shows that intersubjectivity is hybrid, yet flexible, by nature.

Intersubjectivity is a theme in European continental philosophy. It is founded in the metaphysical, epistemological, and axiological. The experience of the world is available not only to oneself but also to others. Each culture shares social experiences that are different from other cultures. These shared social experiences transcend subjectivity in dialogue with other cultures. Dialogue is intersubjective. Language is intersubjective. The psychological process of self-reflection involves intersubjectivity. In dialogue, intersubjectivity can co-constitute the personal and the shared. In this way, intersubjectivity is the ground for objectivity.

Neurobiological research helps explain the experience of motherhood. This book, the exciting collaboration of a developmental psychoanalyst at the forefront of functional magnetic resonance attachment research and a leading neurobiological researcher on mirror neurons, presents a fresh and innovative look at intersubjectivity from a neurobiological and developmental perspective. Grounding their analysis of intersubjectivity in the newest advances from developmental neuroscience, modern attachment theory, and relational psychoanalysis, Massimo Ammaniti and Vittorio Gallese illustrate how brain development changes simultaneously with relationally induced alterations in the subjectivities of both mother and infant. Ammaniti and Gallese combine extensive current interdisciplinary research with in-depth clinical interviews that highlight the expectant mother’s changing subjective states and the various typologies of maternal representations. Building on Gallese’s seminal work with mirror neurons and embodied simulation theory, the authors construct a model of intersubjectivity that stresses not symbolic representations but intercorporeality from a second-person perspective. Charting the prenatal and perinatal events that serve as the neurobiological foundation for postnatal reciprocal affective communications, they conclude with direct clinical applications of early assessments and interventions, including interventions with pregnant mothers. This volume is essential for clinicians specializing in attachment disorders and relational trauma, child psychotherapists, infant mental health workers, pediatricians, psychoanalysts, and developmental researchers. It combines fascinating new information and illustrative clinical experience to illustrate the early intersubjective origins of our own and our patients’ internal worlds.

This book extends philosophy’s engagement with the double beyond hierarchized binary oppositions. Brian Seitz explores the double as a necessary ontological condition or figure that gets represented, enacted, and performed repeatedly and in a myriad of configurations. Seitz suggests that the double in all of its forms is simultaneously philosophy’s shadow, its nemesis, and the condition of its possibility. This book expands definitions and investigations of the double beyond the confines of philosophy, suggesting that the concept is at work in many other fields including politics, cultural narratives, literature, mythology, and psychology. Seitz approaches the double by means of a series of case studies and by engaging loosely in eidetic variation, a methodological maneuver borrowed from phenomenology. The book explores the ways in which wide-ranging instances of the double are connected by the dynamics of intersubjectivity.

One of the foremost religious and social philosophers of the twentieth century, Martin Buber also wrote extensively on sociological subjects, particularly as these affected his philosophical concerns. Collected here, these writings offer essential insights into the human condition as it is expressed in culture and society. Buber's central focus in his sociological work is the relation between social interaction, or intersubjectivity, and the process of human creativity. Specifically, Buber seeks to define the nature and conditions of creativity, the conditions of authentic intersubjective social relations that nurture creativity in society and culture. He attempts to identify situations favorable to creativity that he believes exist to some extent in all cultures, though their fullest development occurs only rarely. Buber considers the combination of open dialogue between human and human and a dialogue between man and God to be necessary for the crystallization of the common discourse that is essential for holding a free, just, and open society together. Important for an understanding of Buber's thought, these writings—touching on education, religion, the state, and charismatic leadership—will be of profound value to students of sociology, philosophy, and religion.