Liana Giorgi – författare

Contemporary Perspectives on the Freudian Death Drive provides a sustained discussion of the death drive from the perspective of different psychoanalytic traditions. Ever since Freud introduced the notion of the death drive, it has been the subject of intense debate in psychoanalysis and beyond.The death drive is arguably the most unsettling psychoanalytic concept. What this concept points to is more unsettling still. It uniquely illuminates the forces of destruction and dissolution at work in individuals as well as in society. This book first introduces Freud’s use of the term, tracing the debates and developments his ideas have led to. The subsequent essays by leading Viennese psychoanalysts demonstrate the power of the death drive to illuminate psychoanalytic theory, clinical practice, and the study of culture. Since this book originally arose from a conference in Vienna, its final segment is dedicated to the forced exile of the early Viennese psychoanalysts due to the Nazi threat. Due to its wide scope and the many perspectives it offers, this book is a tribute to the disturbing relevance of the death drive today. Contemporary Perspectives on the Freudian Death Drive is of special interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, social and cultural scientists, as well as anyone intending to understand the sources and vicissitudes of human destructiveness.

Contemporary Perspectives on the Freudian Death Drive provides a sustained discussion of the death drive from the perspective of different psychoanalytic traditions. Ever since Freud introduced the notion of the death drive, it has been the subject of intense debate in psychoanalysis and beyond.The death drive is arguably the most unsettling psychoanalytic concept. What this concept points to is more unsettling still. It uniquely illuminates the forces of destruction and dissolution at work in individuals as well as in society. This book first introduces Freud’s use of the term, tracing the debates and developments his ideas have led to. The subsequent essays by leading Viennese psychoanalysts demonstrate the power of the death drive to illuminate psychoanalytic theory, clinical practice, and the study of culture. Since this book originally arose from a conference in Vienna, its final segment is dedicated to the forced exile of the early Viennese psychoanalysts due to the Nazi threat. Due to its wide scope and the many perspectives it offers, this book is a tribute to the disturbing relevance of the death drive today. Contemporary Perspectives on the Freudian Death Drive is of special interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, social and cultural scientists, as well as anyone intending to understand the sources and vicissitudes of human destructiveness.

An invaluable exploration of the concern that transfers of power to European Union institutions are producing a worrying new form of democratic deficit. While ongoing reforms of these institutions promise to render decision processes at European level more transparent and accountable, these expert authors examine whether there is a European public sphere for citizens and their representatives to discuss, deliberate and evaluate issues of public relevance. They show how the process of European integration has given rise to a new object of study – European society, and why key questions concerning identity, citizenship, democracy, government and institutions are being raised anew and are major political concerns at European and Member State level. With six case studies of EU policy-making and representative institutions, they analyze the intensity of participatory practices in four dimensions: mobilization of societal actors, public contestation and debate, openness of decision-making, and responsiveness of policy makers.This book will be of strong interest to students and researchers of the European Union, European politics, European studies as well as those concerned with more theoretical aspects of governance and the public sphere.

Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere provides the first major social scientific study of these festivals in the wake of their explosion in popularity over the past decade. It explores the cultural significance of contemporary arts festivals from their location within the cultural public sphere, examining them as sites for contestation and democratic debate, and also identifying them as examples of a particular aesthetic cosmopolitanism.The book approaches contemporary festivals as relatively autonomous social texts that need interpretation and contextualisation. This perspective, combined with a diversified set of theoretical approaches and research methods, and guided by a common thematic rationale, places the volume squarely within some of the most debated topics in current social sciences. Furthermore, the multifaceted nature of festivals allows for unusual but useful connections to be made across several fields of social inquiry.This timely edited collection brings together contributions from key figures across the social sciences, and proves to be valuable reading for undergraduate students, postgraduates, and professionals working within the areas of contemporary social theory, cultural theory, and visual culture.

An invaluable exploration of the concern that transfers of power to European Union institutions are producing a worrying new form of democratic deficit. While ongoing reforms of these institutions promise to render decision processes at European level more transparent and accountable, these expert authors examine whether there is a European public sphere for citizens and their representatives to discuss, deliberate and evaluate issues of public relevance. They show how the process of European integration has given rise to a new object of study – European society, and why key questions concerning identity, citizenship, democracy, government and institutions are being raised anew and are major political concerns at European and Member State level. With six case studies of EU policy-making and representative institutions, they analyze the intensity of participatory practices in four dimensions: mobilization of societal actors, public contestation and debate, openness of decision-making, and responsiveness of policy makers.This book will be of strong interest to students and researchers of the European Union, European politics, European studies as well as those concerned with more theoretical aspects of governance and the public sphere.

Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere provides the first major social scientific study of these festivals in the wake of their explosion in popularity over the past decade. It explores the cultural significance of contemporary arts festivals from their location within the cultural public sphere, examining them as sites for contestation and democratic debate, and also identifying them as examples of a particular aesthetic cosmopolitanism.The book approaches contemporary festivals as relatively autonomous social texts that need interpretation and contextualisation. This perspective, combined with a diversified set of theoretical approaches and research methods, and guided by a common thematic rationale, places the volume squarely within some of the most debated topics in current social sciences. Furthermore, the multifaceted nature of festivals allows for unusual but useful connections to be made across several fields of social inquiry.This timely edited collection brings together contributions from key figures across the social sciences, and proves to be valuable reading for undergraduate students, postgraduates, and professionals working within the areas of contemporary social theory, cultural theory, and visual culture.

This title was first published in 2003. What is the meaning of "sustainable mobility"? Is there a European common transport policy? To what extent is policy relevant for transport developments? What is the contribution of European transport research? These are some of the questions and themes addressed in this study of transport policy and research. It addresses the dynamics surrounding policy formulation and implementation, the conflicts of interest underlying these processes at the regional, national and supra-national levels, the inherent contradictions of the ecological modernization discourse as it applies to transport, and the role of the public or the citizen in determining trajectories for future developments. The book distils the results of three projects that have been completed with the support of the European Commission under the Fourth Framework Transport RTD Programme, namely the TENASSESS, CODE-TEN and POSSUM projects. The majority of the contributions derive from the TENASSESS project.

This title was first published in 2003. What is the meaning of "sustainable mobility"? Is there a European common transport policy? To what extent is policy relevant for transport developments? What is the contribution of European transport research? These are some of the questions and themes addressed in this study of transport policy and research. It addresses the dynamics surrounding policy formulation and implementation, the conflicts of interest underlying these processes at the regional, national and supra-national levels, the inherent contradictions of the ecological modernization discourse as it applies to transport, and the role of the public or the citizen in determining trajectories for future developments. The book distils the results of three projects that have been completed with the support of the European Commission under the Fourth Framework Transport RTD Programme, namely the TENASSESS, CODE-TEN and POSSUM projects. The majority of the contributions derive from the TENASSESS project.

This title was first published in 2002: There is a multitude of assessment methods available for analyzing and reporting on the impacts of policies, all with different underlying assumptions and a wide range of criteria. Since the 1950s, much research has gone into creating guidelines for policy analysis, yet only a small percentage of evaluation has been carried out on transport policy - and none by political scientists or social policy specialists. The editors of this volume recognize that European integration has seen a drive to bring policy evaluation on to the transport agenda and has increased demands for ’strategic assessments’. It has become apparent that to gain a fuller understanding of the success of a transport programme, a much more complex combination of analytical methods must be used, and a set of guidelines specifically for the field of transport must be developed. This book achieves this by bringing together a multidisciplinary team of analysts from throughout the EU to discuss in a much broader way the various types of assessment methods and how they can best be used to evaluate transport programmes and systems, both individually and in combination.