Luigi Zoja – författare

The relentless exploitation of the earth's resources and technologys boundless growth are a matter of urgent concern. When did this race towards the limitless begin?The Greeks, who shaped the basis of Western thinking, lived in mortal fear of humanity's hidden hunger for the infinite and referred to it as hubris, the one true sin in their moral code. Whoever desired or possessed too much was implacably punished by nemesis, yet the Greeks themselves were to pioneer an unprecedented level of ambition that began to reverse that tabu.If it is true that no culture can truly repudiate its origins, and that gods who are no longer potent can vanish but still leave behind a body of myth which coninues to live and assert itself in modernized garb, then our concern with the limits of growth reflects something more than an awareness of new technological problems - it also brings to light a psychic wound a a feeling of guilt which are infinitely more ancient.

The relentless exploitation of the earth's resources and technologys boundless growth are a matter of urgent concern. When did this race towards the limitless begin?The Greeks, who shaped the basis of Western thinking, lived in mortal fear of humanity's hidden hunger for the infinite and referred to it as hubris, the one true sin in their moral code. Whoever desired or possessed too much was implacably punished by nemesis, yet the Greeks themselves were to pioneer an unprecedented level of ambition that began to reverse that tabu.If it is true that no culture can truly repudiate its origins, and that gods who are no longer potent can vanish but still leave behind a body of myth which coninues to live and assert itself in modernized garb, then our concern with the limits of growth reflects something more than an awareness of new technological problems - it also brings to light a psychic wound a a feeling of guilt which are infinitely more ancient.

Countless children throughout the world grow up without fathers. In this revised and updated edition of The Father, accompanied by a new preface, Luigi Zoja studies the reasons for this and assesses the contribution of this phenomenon to social and psychological problems.Using examples from classical antiquity to the present day, Zoja views the origins and evolution of the father from a Jungian perspective. He argues that the father’s role in bringing up children is a social construction that has been subject to change throughout history, and goes on to examine the consequences and consider the crisis facing fatherhood today. No other existing book faces the subject of fatherhood from such a broad and multidisciplinary perspective. Covering these issues from historical, sociological and psychological points of view, this revised edition of The Father includes a complete reworking of the final part of the book, focusing on the condition of the father in today’s globalized world, and with a particular look at the role historical trauma and grief play in family relationships.The book will be of special interest to analytical psychologists and Jungian psychotherapists in practice and in training, academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, sociology, anthropology, gender studies, and history.

Countless children throughout the world grow up without fathers. In this revised and updated edition of The Father, accompanied by a new preface, Luigi Zoja studies the reasons for this and assesses the contribution of this phenomenon to social and psychological problems.Using examples from classical antiquity to the present day, Zoja views the origins and evolution of the father from a Jungian perspective. He argues that the father’s role in bringing up children is a social construction that has been subject to change throughout history, and goes on to examine the consequences and consider the crisis facing fatherhood today. No other existing book faces the subject of fatherhood from such a broad and multidisciplinary perspective. Covering these issues from historical, sociological and psychological points of view, this revised edition of The Father includes a complete reworking of the final part of the book, focusing on the condition of the father in today’s globalized world, and with a particular look at the role historical trauma and grief play in family relationships.The book will be of special interest to analytical psychologists and Jungian psychotherapists in practice and in training, academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, sociology, anthropology, gender studies, and history.

Luigi Zoja presents an insightful analysis of the use and misuse of paranoia throughout history and in contemporary society. Zoja combines history with depth psychology, contemporary politics and tragic literature, resulting in a clear and balanced analysis presented with rare clarity. The devastating impact of paranoia on societies is explored in detail. Focusing on the contagious aspects of paranoia and its infectious, self-replicating dynamics, Zoja takes such diverse examples as Ajax and George W. Bush, Cain and the American Holocaust, Hitler, Stalin and Othello to illustrate his argument. He reconstructs the emblematic arguments that paranoia has promoted in Western history and examines how the power of the modern media and mass communication has affected how it spreads. Paranoia clearly examines how leaders lose control of their influence, how the collective unconscious acquires an autonomous life and how seductive its effects can be – more so than any political, religious or ideological discourse.This gripping study will be essential reading for depth and analytical psychologists, and academics and students of history, cultural studies, psychology, classical studies, literary studies, anthropology and sociology.

Luigi Zoja presents an insightful analysis of the use and misuse of paranoia throughout history and in contemporary society. Zoja combines history with depth psychology, contemporary politics and tragic literature, resulting in a clear and balanced analysis presented with rare clarity. The devastating impact of paranoia on societies is explored in detail. Focusing on the contagious aspects of paranoia and its infectious, self-replicating dynamics, Zoja takes such diverse examples as Ajax and George W. Bush, Cain and the American Holocaust, Hitler, Stalin and Othello to illustrate his argument. He reconstructs the emblematic arguments that paranoia has promoted in Western history and examines how the power of the modern media and mass communication has affected how it spreads. Paranoia clearly examines how leaders lose control of their influence, how the collective unconscious acquires an autonomous life and how seductive its effects can be – more so than any political, religious or ideological discourse.This gripping study will be essential reading for depth and analytical psychologists, and academics and students of history, cultural studies, psychology, classical studies, literary studies, anthropology and sociology.

In Cultivating the Soul Luigi Zoja argues that the soul's 'cultivation' underpins all cultural phenomena. The author examines the mythopoetic function in human beings by locating Psychoanalysis within the history of the Western world and firmly rooting it in the classical tradition. When for example, Zoja links psychoanalytic narration with the epic-tragic narration in Greek civilization, he is establishing a remarkable kind of continuity, one which transcends centuries of economic, political and social change to insist on the timeless human need to tell a life story with passion in order to make sense of it. Zoja's masterful knowledge of the classical world is here used dialectically, to understand and explicate our modern-day predicaments. Whether employing classical notions, like hubris, (to analyze the modern phenomenon of arrogant acquisitiveness), or deploying a contemporary perspective on antiquity (to examine, for instance Homer's own technique of "mass communication"), Zoja's words fall like a sword cutting through to the core of what he sees as the inertia of much contemporary thinking.The author explores what he sees as the failure in the formation of a contemporary European identity. Lacking formative myths, with psyches mutilated by the failure of the mythopoetic function, today's citizens are left with little other than an economic reality called "Europe" to orient them. It is in such a context that Zoja claims a crucial role for Psychoanalysis in elucidating cultural, social and political phenomena. In these eighteen essays, spanning ten years and grappling with thinkers from Plato to Hillman, Bloch to Ortega, Michelangelo to Rilke, and Nietzsche to Freud and Jung, Luigi Zoja consolidates his position as one of Europe's most erudite, skillful, and genuinely helpful thinkers.