In these powerful essays, Jacqueline Rose delves into the questions that keep us awake at night, into issues of privacy and writing, exposure and shame. Do women writers--Christina Rossetti, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath--have a special talent for self-revelation? Or are they simply more vulnerable to the invasions of biography? What ethical questions are raised by Ted Hughes's role in Plath's writing life? What do Adrienne Rich and Natalie Angier reveal about the destiny of feminism? In its affinity with modernist writing, what can psychoanalysis tell us about the limits of knowledge--both about the most intimate components of experience and the most hallucinatory reaches of the mind? Have psychoanalytic writers today and the very institution of psychoanalysis remained faithful to the most potent and disturbing aspects of Freud's vision? Finally Rose addresses some of the most dramatic public performances of our times--the cult of celebrity with its contrasting obsessions with Princess Diana and the child murderer Mary Bell; and South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission which, in a stirring last essay, allows Rose to explore the ethical and political responsibilities of thought and speech in times of historical crisis. Moving deftly with style, force, and clarity between our public, political, and private, unconscious worlds, On Not Being Able to Sleep, forges a unique set of links between feminism, psychoanalysis, literature, and politics. The result is a book well worth staying up late to read--one that exposes the uncomfortable borderland between our desire to speak out and be silent, between the stage of the world and of the mind.
A slim, heart-wrenching, and rousing new book from the leading feminist writer Jacqueline Rose. In early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began to infiltrate public consciousness, sales of The Plague, the classic novel by French philosopher Albert Camus, skyrocketed. At the same time, the virus’s toll surged exponentially. Amid the harrowing loss, many sensed a glimmer of possibility—the potential for radical empathy wrought by shared experience—even as the death-dealing divisions of class, race, gender, and citizenship were underscored like never before. We have been through a time of ‘living death’ when, for millions across the globe, untold horror has seemed to infiltrate the very air we breathe. Jacqueline Rose’s trenchant new book unravels recent history via the lives and works of three extraordinary thinkers—Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, and Simone Weil, each one afflicted by catastrophe. Their politics and private griefs, the depth of their understanding, fling open a window into our present crises. Rose, one of the most insightful thinkers on politics and psychoanalysis alike, has written a story of unusual range, spanning World War II to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, surging domestic violence to emboldened anti-racist protest, the Spanish influenza to Omicron, Boris Johnson’s deranged optimism to Vladimir Putin’s megalomania. The Plague: Living Death In Our Times enacts a psychic reckoning for our moment and for the future to be forged in its aftermath.
In The Last Resistance, Jacqueline Rose explores the power of writing to create and transform our political lives. In particular, she examines the role of literature in the Zionist imagination: here, literature is presented as a unique form of dissidence, with the power to expose the unconscious of nations, and often proposing radical alternatives totheir dominant pathways and beliefs. While Israel-Palestine is the repeated focus, The Last Resistance also turns to post-apartheid South Africa, to American national fantasy post-9/11, and to key moments for the understanding of Jewish culture and memory. Rose also underscores the importance of psychoanalysis, both historically in relation to the unfolding of world events, and as a tool of political understanding. Examining topics ranging from David Grossman, through W.G. Sebald, Freud, Nadine Gordimer, the concept of evil, and suicide bombers, The Last Resistance offers a unique way of responding to the crises of the times.
An exhilarating journey through the life, times, and inner thoughts of some of the most creative women of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by a leading feminist writer.
A simple argument guides this book: motherhood is the place in our culture where we lodge, or rather bury, the reality of our own conflicts. By making mothers the objects of both licensed idealization and cruelty, we blind ourselves to the world’s iniquities and shut down the portals of the heart. Mothers are the ultimate scapegoat for our personal and political failings, for everything that is wrong with the world, which becomes their task (unrealizable, of course) to repair. Moving commandingly between pop cultural references such as Roald Dahl’s Matilda to insights on motherhood in the ancient world and the contemporary stigmatization of single mothers, Jacqueline Rose delivers a groundbreaking report into something so prevalent we hardly notice. Mothers is an incisive, rousing call to action from one of our most important contemporary thinkers.
A blazingly insightful, provocative study of violence against women from the peerless feminist critic. Why has violence, and especially violence against women, become so much more prominent and visible across the world? To explore this question, Jacqueline Rose tracks the multiple forms of today’s violence – historic and intimate, public and private – as they spread throughout our social fabric, offering a new, provocative account of violence in our time. From trans rights and #MeToo to the sexual harassment of migrant women, from the trial of Oscar Pistorius to domestic violence in lockdown, from the writing of Roxanne Gay to Hisham Mitar and Han Kang, she casts her net wide. What obscene pleasure in violence do so many male leaders of the Western world unleash in their supporters? Is violence always gendered and if so, always in the same way? What is required of the human mind when it grants itself permission to do violence? On Violence and On Violence Against Women is a timely and urgent agitation against injustice, a challenge to radical feminism and a meaningful call to action.
Over the past decade, psychoanalysis has been a focus of continuing controversy for feminism, and at the centre of debates in the humanities about how we read literature and culture. In these essays, Jacqueline Rose continues her engagement with these issues while arguing for a shift of attention - from an emphasis on sexuality as writing to the place of the unconscious in the furthest reaches of or cultural and political lives. With essays on war, capital punishment and the dispute over seduction in relation to Freud, she opens up the field of psychopolitics. Finally in two extended essays on Melanie Klein and her critics, she suggests that it is time for a radical rereading of Klein's work.
States of Fantasy is Jacqueline Rose's much-praised contribution to the current controversy over the limits of English Studies. Arguing for an expansion of the new boundaries of `English', and for the importance of psychoanalysis to the understanding of our literary and historical lives, Roselooks at Israel/Palestine and South Africa, and their place in the English literary and cultural imagination.Jacqueline Rose's fundamental question is the place of fantasy in public and private identities, and in these pages she pushes her investigation further into what might at first glance seem unlikely places. In September 1993, Israel and the PLO signed their first peace treaty; in April 1994, SouthAfrica held its first non-racial democratic elections. States of Fantasy persuasively puts the case that nowhere demonstrates more clearly than these two arenas of historic conflict the need for a psychoanalytically informed understanding of historical process. In so doing, this book shows how theplace of England and its writing in those histories emphasize the unbreakable line that runs between literature and politics. Stretching the limits of the `canon' debate, the author offers the strongest rebuttal to critics who try to sever the links between the study of literature and culture andthe making and unmaking of the modern world.The central part of this wide-ranging and lively study was originally delivered as the 1994 Clarendon Lectures in Oxford.
A pivotal work in the history of feminism and a groundbreaking intervention into film theory, Sexuality in the Field of Vision is a brilliantly original exploration of the interface between feminism, psychoanalysis, semiotics and film theory
Zionism was inspired as a movement--one driven by the search for a homeland for the stateless and persecuted Jewish people. Yet it trampled the rights of the Arabs in Palestine. Today it has become so controversial that it defies understanding and trumps reasoned public debate. So argues prominent British writer Jacqueline Rose, who uses her political and psychoanalytic skills in this book to take an unprecedented look at Zionism--one of the most powerful ideologies of modern times. Rose enters the inner world of the movement and asks a new set of questions. How did Zionism take shape as an identity? And why does it seem so immutable? Analyzing the messianic fervor of Zionism, she argues that it colors Israel's most profound self-image to this day. Rose also explores the message of dissidents, who, while believing themselves the true Zionists, warned at the outset against the dangers of statehood for the Jewish people. She suggests that these dissidents were prescient in their recognition of the legitimate claims of the Palestinian Arabs. In fact, she writes, their thinking holds the knowledge the Jewish state needs today in order to transform itself. In perhaps the most provocative part of her analysis, Rose proposes that the link between the Holocaust and the founding of the Jewish state, so often used to justify Israel's policies, needs to be rethought in terms of the shame felt by the first leaders of the nation toward their own European history. For anyone concerned with the conflict in Israel-Palestine, this timely book offers a unique understanding of Zionism as an unavoidable psychic and historical force.
Using an impressive array of material from literature, archaeology and social theory, Edward Said explores the profound implications of Freud's Moses and Monotheism for Middle-East politics today. The resulting book reveals Said's abiding interest in Freud's work and its important influence on his own. He proposes that Freud's assumption that Moses was an Egyptian undermines any simple ascription of a pure identity, and further that identity itself cannot be thought or worked through without the recognition of the limits inherent in it. Said suggests that such an unresolved, nuanced sense of identity might, if embodied in political reality, have formed, or might still form, the basis for a new understanding between Jews and Palestinians. Instead, Israel's relentless march towards an exclusively Jewish state denies any sense of a more complex, inclusive past.
Known for her far-reaching examinations of psychoanalysis, literature, and politics, Jacqueline Rose has in recent years turned her attention to the Israel-Palestine conflict, one of the most enduring and apparently intractable conflicts of our time. In Proust among the Nations, she takes the development of her thought on this crisis a stage further, revealing it as a distinctly Western problem. In a radical rereading of the Dreyfus affair through the lens of Marcel Proust in dialogue with Freud, Rose offers a fresh and nuanced account of the rise of Jewish nationalism and the subsequent creation of Israel. Following Proust’s heirs, Beckett and Genet, and a host of Middle Eastern writers, artists, and filmmakers, Rose traces the shifting dynamic of memory and identity across the crucial and ongoing cultural links between Europe and Palestine. A powerful and elegant analysis of the responsibility of writing, Proust among the Nations makes the case for literature as a unique resource for understanding political struggle and gives us new ways to think creatively about the violence in the Middle East.
What does Peter Pan have to say about our conception of childhood, about how we understand the child's and our own relationship to language, sexuality, and death? What can Peter Pan tell us about the theatrical, literary, and educational institutions of which it is a part? In a new preface written especially for this edition, Rose accounts for some of the new developments since her book's first publication in 1984. She discusses some of Peter Pan's new guises and their implications. From Spielberg's Hook, to the lesbian production of the play at the London Drill Hall in 1991, to debates in the English House of Lords, to a newly claimed status as the icon of a transvestite culture, Peter Pan continues to demonstrate its bizarre renewability as a cultural fetish of our times.
When life with Jayni's violent-tempered father becomes too frightening to cope with, Jayni, her mum and her little brother Kenny are forced to escape in the middle of the night. Slipping out of the house unseen, travelling up to London by train and checking into a hotel - it's almost like playing an elaborate game. They even make up false identities to protect their secret, and Jayni becomes the glamorous-sounding Lola Rose. But when money runs out and reality bites, what will they do next?
The position of English monarchs as supreme governors of the Church of England profoundly affected early modern politics and religion. This innovative book explores how tensions in church-state relations created by Henry VIII's Reformation continued to influence relationships between the crown, Parliament and common law during the Restoration, a distinct phase in England's 'long Reformation'. Debates about the powers of kings and parliaments, the treatment of Dissenters and emerging concepts of toleration were viewed through a Reformation prism where legitimacy depended on godly status. This book discusses how the institutional, legal and ideological framework of supremacy perpetuated the language of godly kingship after 1660 and how supremacy was complicated by the ambivalent Tudor legacy. It was manipulated by not only Anglicans, but also tolerant kings and intolerant parliaments, Catholics, Dissenters and radicals like Thomas Hobbes. Invented to uphold the religious and political establishments, supremacy paradoxically ended up subverting them.
Cooking With Jacque Rose is a reckoning of my experiences in the kitchen. My cookbook is didactic, with recipes geared towards beginners to chefs learning to prepare soul food. These recipes are the capture classic comfort food that has been handed down from generation to generation. This book translates and presents my family history through food. When you read my book, I want you to feel that we are in the kitchen talking loud, laughing, sharing stories and having a good old time while we prepare the best ole country dishes.
Clementine Rose is going to be on the big screen! Her neighbour, Basil Hobbs, is making a documentary about Penberthy House and has given her a starring role. Clementine can't wait to uncover the magic of motion picture."--Back cover.
Wedding bells are ringing and it's time to celebrate! Clementine Rose is fizzing with excitement. Her mother’s marriage to Drew is just around the corner and she can’t wait to be a flower girl! Preparations for the special occasion are well underway at Penberthy House and it seems that even grumpy Aunt Violet has caught the wedding fever. But with the appearance of Sebastian Smote, wedding planner extraordinaire, Aunt Violet’s festive spirit soon turns a bit feisty. Add to that an unexpected letter and a very curious house guest, and plans begin to unravel. Could the big day turn into a big disaster? Clementine will need to be on her toes as love creates chaos every step of the way.
Clementine Rose was delivered not in the usual way, at a hospital, but in the back of a mini-van, in a basket of dinner rolls. So begins the story of a lovely little girl who lives in Penberthy Floss in a large ramshackle house with her mother, Lady Clarissa, Digby Pertwhistle the butler and a very sweet teacup pig called Lavender. When her scary Aunt Violet arrives unexpectedly, the household is thrown into disarray. What is it that Aunt Violet really wants and what is she carrying in her mysterious black bag? From the author of the best-selling Alice-Miranda series, for readers aged 5+.
This book was written by the author to touch on the contentious and sensitive adversity aspects of issues relating to - burdens and tribulations, against - weaknesses and strengths - of hidden love in silence. It reflects upon the blamelessness of others from a truly beloved love that, no one can share except a lonely pig that is forbidden to communicate in the outside of her pen, that she lives in and, becomes a great friend and loved animal pig - and of course be accepted by human society. The author holds back nothing that can cause destructive and negative associations between animal and human relationships. I am sure you will be able to relate to this tale - as it is based on true research facts and experiences throughout the period of this beloved pig she is called ROSE because that is a beautiful name for a pig who in nature is a very intelligent pig, with an expansive imagination you can get locked up so easily in her adventures and beliefs. She also has a most sensitive nature and wants so desperately to be adored, respected and loved by other pig pals and family connections. ROSE can be viewed at anytime in your heart with her imagination going wild - she is the most beautiful pig in the world and, can be reached in any parts of anyones imagination because she has tried so hard to fly in any direction that catches her spirit. However, at the beginning of her life she was a very lonely pig until she meets another pig pal friend who did not have a name, but ROSE called him CESAR, because he believed in her beauty and imagination and, they can both fly together in harmony one day. ROSE and CESAR replies to all readers of this book to love, respect and give happiness to these pig animals and of course all animals in this world for today and tomorrow.
A new year, a new teacher, and a very mysterious house guest. Clementine Rose is heading back to school, and this year she has a new teacher. Young Mr. Smee is very different to Mrs. Bottomley and he sets the class a special project. Clemmie can't wait to get started! Meanwhile at Penberthy House, an intriguing guest has just arrived. Miss Richardson is staying for a whole month to write a book. Trouble is, she never comes out of her room and doesn't seem to like children at all. Will Clementine discover who their elderly resident is and why she is so secretive?
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