Biography: philosophy and social sciences Books

Book SynopsisA deeply honest, searching examination of psychotherapy based on the experiences of a young sceptical trainee meeting his first patients. "Why is psychotherapy different from talking to a friend?" Hazanov asks. "Because generations of self-interested therapists told us so?" In the spirit of Mikhail Bulgakov's A Young Doctor's Notebook and Sandeep Jauhar's Intern, this sparkling collection of ten linked short stories, set in New York city, follows Hazanov as he navigates the maze of psychological theories he's been taught, facing the alarming dissonance between them and the tragic reality of his patients' lives. "How does psychotherapy work? And why do people not get any better?" Frustrated by fancy jargon and unrealistic depictions, Hazanov is on a quest to dispel the myths of psychotherapy and discover its essence. In The Fear of Doing Nothing Hazonov illuminates the intimacy, vulnerability and messiness of the therapeutic encounter, providing his answer to the question of what psychotherapy is. Table of ContentsAUTHOR’S NOTE The fear of doing nothing The rock that ties down the balloon What is breakfast? Snowflakes One day Good mourning men The dreamer and the realist Gloom and Maserati Many a time My first private patient ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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Book SynopsisAn engaging book that charts the turbulent journey from childhood to adulthood of a well-known psychoanalyst. "Our human task is to be lived by Life. Life as a transcendent principle. It seems to me that a reliable test of whether we have lived worthwhile lives is this: is the world a better place for my having lived in it?" Neville Symington has written a dozen books about psychoanalysis but this one is different from all the others. It is an emotional autobiography that starts with his own birth and gives a character sketch of his mother and father and his upbringing in Portugal, with a two year period in Canada, and takes the reader through to the age of 45 by which time he was a qualified psychoanalyst, married with two sons and, at the time, living in London. This sounds like the story of a peaceful journey from childhood through to his chosen career in adulthood. However, the author takes the reader through the period of his earlier career in the Church in a parish in the East End of London and the turbulent period of change that led him to take leave of this first career, seek psychoanalysis and finally to become a psychoanalyst himself. This is an engaging book that charts the emotional storms and the ups and downs that beset the life's journey of a well-known psychoanalyst.Table of ContentsCONTENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR ix CHAPTER ONE Father 1 CHAPTER TWO Mother 49 CHAPTER THREE School and after school 69 CHAPTER FOUR Nightmare in Lisbon 101 CHAPTER FIVE The seminary 119 CHAPTER SIX The birth of subjectivity 149 CHAPTER SEVEN In exile 201 CHAPTER EIGHT Disaster and recovery 261

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Book SynopsisThe Works of Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī, a three volume set, contains a fully annotated translation of the extant writings of Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Yaʿqūbī, a Muslim imperial official and polymath of the third/ninth century, along with an introduction to these works and a biographical sketch of their author. The most important of the works are the History (Ta’rikh) and his Geography (Kitab al-buldan). It also contains a new translation of al-Yaʿqūbī’s political essay (Mushakalat al-nas) and a set of fragmentary texts drawn from other Arabic medieval works. Al-Yaʿqūbī’s writings are among the earliest surviving Arabic-language works of the Islamic period, and thus offer an invaluable body of evidence on patterns of early Islamic history, social and economic organization, and cultural production. Contributors: Laila Asser, Paul Cobb, Lawrence I. Conrad, Elton Daniel, Fred Donner, Michael Fishbein, Matthew S. Gordon, Sidney H. Griffith, Wadad Kadi (al-Qāḍī), Lutz Richter-Bernberg, Chase F. Robinson, Everett K. Rowson The hardback edition of this title is also available as part of a 3-volume set (hardback, ISBN 978-90-04-35608-5), click here.

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Book SynopsisThis book is situated at the cutting edge of the political-ethical dimension of history writing. Henkes investigates various responsibilities and loyalties towards family and nation, as well as other major ethical obligations towards society and humanity when historical subjects have to deal with a repressive political regime. In the first section we follow pre-war German immigrants in the Netherlands and their German affiliation during the era of National Socialism. The second section explores the positions of Dutch emigrants who settled after the Second World War in Apartheid South Africa. The narratives of these transnational agents and their relatives provide a lens through which changing constructions of national identities, and the acceptance or rejection of a nationalist policy on racial grounds, can be observed in everyday practice.Trade ReviewRacial relations stunningly revealed in family and society "This very accessible and well-written historical work uses everyday personal experiences of German migrants in the Netherlands during World War II and of Dutch migrants in South Africa during apartheid to explore racial politics. The ethical dilemmas experienced by the migrants are contained in family documents that mediated their transnational relationships. Writing the history of racial relations comparatively (The Netherlands and South Africa), personalised and contextualised is strikingly revealing of the complexities of the mid-20th century. The book is unusual in its achievement of bringing history (mainly 'her' story) alive in a field too often dominated by dramatic national events. By focusing on the experiences and reflections of 'ordinary people' (especially housemaids and immigrant women in a fraught diasporic context), the author tells a convincing narrative of situatedness, the challenges of conflicting ethical and ideological claims and the agency of individuals in extremely racialised social settings. This is a very much needed new historical approach that prioritizes entanglements and complexities above the determination of political structures.” Kees van der Waal, Emeritus Professor in Social Anthropology of Stellenbosch University. "Barbara Henkes’s in-depth analysis of letters, stories and images of migrants who came to the Netherlands from Nazi Germany before World War II and migrants who left the Netherlands for Apartheid South Africa after the war puts flesh on the bones of a transnational historiography. By addressing the entanglements between the histories of Nazism and Apartheid her book builds on Hannah Arendt's classic thesis that the rise of totalitarianism in Europe modern overseas imperialism were two sides of the same coin. In that sense, Henkes' conceptual framework provides an impetus for further fruitful historical research into other (post-)colonial situations. In addition this book, and Henkes work in recent years, has important societal relevance : she sets out to expose racism in Dutch society, which is often downplayed or concealed. With this intervention this book engages with the public debate about the Dutch colonial past, which has been flaring up again since the spring of 2020." Vincent Kuitenbrouwer, Senior Lecturer History of International Relations at the University of Amsterdam and author of War of words: Dutch pro-Boer propaganda and the South African War (1899-1902). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012. "All in all, a rich and well-written book, bringing both these personal histories and their larger historical contexts near to the reader". Elsbeth Locher-Scholten, in Fascism 11, 2022. "In dit fraai uitgevoerde boek over transnationale verwantschapsnetwerken slaagt Henkes erin om inzichtelijk te maken hoe elkaar onderling beïnvloedende categorieën als nationaliteit, ras, klasse, geloof en gender tot soms heel verschillende politieke vertogen kunnen leiden. De combinatie van verhalen over migratie in de tijd van het nationaalsocialisme en in de apartheidstijd is niet bedoeld om een direct verband te suggereren, maar kan helpen om op beide periodes een nieuw licht te werpen en onbekende nuances bloot te leggen. Henkes schrijft met respect voor haar 'personages'. Het unieke en veelzijdige bronnenmateriaal leidt tot zes vlot leesbare, intieme en some smeuïge minibiografietjes, waarin Henkes een indringend en niet zelden ontroerend beeld van een tijd geeft." Ingrid Glorie, in: Voertaal (2020-08-31).Table of ContentsIntroduction • Family and nation as imagined communities • Race and narratives of Whiteness • A first acquaintance • Shifts in time and tongue Section 1: National Socialism across the German-Dutch border 1. ‘Will my own brother have to fight against us now?’ Safe and risky stories in a German-Dutch family • Political controversies • A German-Dutch royal family • Family and nation under pressure • Gnadengesuch (Request for exemption) • Race as the elephant in the room 2. ‘If war comes, I will be tossed to and fro’ Literature as a home for an immigrant from Germany • Longing for the ‘good’ Germany • Into the blue • A Heimat in Holland? • ‘You are no longer German’ • A sprinkling of sand in the gears • Guild and shame 3. ‘Even after the war we will stand alone ' Letters as drops in an antisemitic Ocean • Marriage certificate • Stateless • 'A man I had to protect' • Growing isolation • Terrified • Together and yet alone • ‘One cannot say: it belongs to the past’ Section 2: Apartheid across the Dutch-South African border 4. ‘Can we build a future on this?' An epistolary love affair between the stamverwante Netherlands and South Africa • The Second World War in Breukelen and Bloemfontein • Foreign and yet so familiar • A shared European origin • Emigration fever • On the way to the Promised Land • The Dutch Reformed Dopper church in South Africa • ‘A life full of grace’ 5. ‘They are so different from us’ Messages from a White women’s world • Whitening at sea • A new world in Black and White • Boers, Brits and Outlanders • Among the Dutch in Pretoria • Blank baasskap (White rule) • A servant hutch in the garden • Stay or return? • A White civilisation narrative 6. ‘I never set out to wage war against my family.’ Cinematic explorations of Whiteness • Family as a gateway to a ‘strange’ world • The ‘Other’ in the household • Apartheid at work • Contact zones • A tense family reunion • You must have been – or gone away from – there • The presence of the past Epilogue • Migration and national identifications • Implicated in racial exclusion • Touching tales Acknowledgement Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis volume investigates the development of biographical study in African history and historiography. Consisting of 10 case studies, it is preceded by an introductory prologue, which deals with the relationship between historiography and different forms of biographical study in the context of Western history-writing but especially African (historical and anthropological) studies. The first three case studies deal with the methodological insights of biographical studies for African history. This is followed by three case studies dealing with personas living through fundamental societal transitions, and four case studies focusing on the discursive dimensions of biographical subjects (including religion, cosmology and ideology). Countries or regions discussed include South Africa, Zambia, Gold Coast, Cameroon, Tanganyika, Congo-Kinshasa and the Central African Republic in colonial times. Contributors are Lindie Koorts, Elena Moore, Iva Peša, Paul Glen Grant, Jacqueline de Vries, Duncan Money, Morgan Robinson, Eve Wong, Klaas van Walraven, Erik Kennes.Table of Contents  Acknowledgements   List of Illustrations    Notes on Contributors   Prologue: Reflections on Historiography and Biography and the Study of Africa’s Past    Klaas van Walraven Part 1: Methodological Insights  1 Human Symbols   The Biographical Pursuit and the Language of Symbolism in Contemporary South Africa    Lindie Koorts  2 ‘Your Surroundings Don’t Make You; You Must Rise above all that’   The Home in Life Histories as Site of Resistance to Racial Violence, Cape Town, South Africa    Elena Moore  3 From Life Histories to Social History   Narrating Social Change through Multiple Biographies    Iva Peša Part 2: Persons in Transitions  4 The Effervescence of Individual Life: Cornelius Badu, Born 1847 in Elmina, Gold Coast    Paul Glen Grant  5 The Leopard that Came to Laikom: Michael Timneng in Colonial Cameroon    Jacqueline de Vries  6 Underground Struggles: The Early Life of Jack Hodgson    Duncan Money Part 3: Discursive Worlds  7 Binding Words: Student Biographical Narratives and Religious Conversion    Morgan Robinson  8 A Muslim Boy in Sunday School   Abdullah Abdurahman’s Early Childhood and Education in Cape Town at the End of the Nineteenth Century    Eve Wong  9 Barthélémy Boganda between Charisma and Cosmology   Interpretive Perspectives on Biography in Equatorial African History    Klaas van Walraven  10 A Road not Taken? The Biography of Laurent Kabila (1939-2001)    Erik Kennes   Index

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Book SynopsisDistinctions of Reason and Reasonable Distinctions is an intellectual biography of John Wallis (1616-1703), professor of mathematics at Oxford for over half a century. His career spans the political tumult of the English Civil Wars, the religious upheaval of the Church of England, and the fascinating developments in mathematics and natural philosophy. His ability to navigate this terrain and advance human learning in the academic world was facilitated by his use of the Jesuit Francisco Suarez’s theory of distinctions. This Roman Catholic’s philosophy in the hands of a Protestant divine fostered an instrumentalism necessary to bridge the old and new. With this tool, Wallis brought modern science into the university and helped form the Royal Society.Table of ContentsForeword Preface Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Abbreviations 1 Introduction  1 John Wallis’s “Mottled Soul”: The Interpretative Challenge  2 The Salve of the “Town Doctor”: the Interpretive Approach PART 1: John Wallis’s Academic Formation Introduction to Part 1 2 John Wallis’s Autobiography: Text and Context  1 John Wallis and Thomas Smith  2 John Wallis’s Manuscript Copies of His Autobiography  3 John Wallis, Anthony Wood, and the Memory of the Town Doctor 3 Early Life and Education  1 At Home and at School, 1616–32  2 Cambridge University, 1632–40 4 The Foundation of a Career  1 Ecclesiastical Service, 1640–49  2 Natural Philosophy in London, 1645–49  3 Conclusion Conclusion to Part 1 PART 2: John Wallis’s Academic Career Introduction to Part 2 5 Mathematical Lecturer  1 The Savilian Statutes  2 Lectures on Arithmetic and Algebra  3 Lectures on Geometry  4 Conclusion 6 Doctor of Divinity  1 Dogmatics and the Distinctions of Reason  2 Reason and Revelation  3 Conclusion: the Hermeneutic of Suspension 7 Pedagogue, Pastor, and Protector  1 Geometry as Solidior Philosophia  2 The Care of Scholars  3 A University in Its Own Right  4 Conclusion Conclusion to Part 2 PART 3: John Wallis’s Philosophical Method Introduction to Part 3 8 Mathematical Method  1 Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic  2 Arithmetica Infinitorum, 1656  3 Hobbes and Wallis  4 Imaginary Numbers  5 The Angle of Contact  6 Conclusion 9 The Languages of Philosophy  1 Logic  2 Language  3 Conclusion Conclusion to Part 3 10 Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrailblazing transgender actress, activist, and style icon Candis Cayne has spent a lifetime learning how to see herself for who she really is, and along the way has taught herself and others how to celebrate inner beauty as the perfect starting point for outer radiance. Drawing from her personal journey to self-acceptance and comprised of a unique combination of cross-barrier, body-positive wellness and style advice, Hi Gorgeous! is a one-of-a-kind beauty guide that will speak to all women. Engagingly written, highly visual, and filled with Glam on the Go tips and exclusive interviews with Candis''s team of radiance experts, the book will cover everything from new definitions of womanhood and beauty (with elements of Candis''s own journey woven in) to hands-on makeup and style tips aimed at enhancing all of a woman''s possibilities.Hi Gorgeous! opens with a foreword by Candis''s best friend, former Olympian and transgender star Caitlyn Jenner. This beauti

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