Bret Alderman's Posts (2)

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"Alderman's analysis of deconstruction is meticulous and riveting. He also persuasively highlights its archetypal repetition in the mythology of the eternal youth. But his argument is not merely polemical; it is a nuanced reworking of its gifts into a synthesis which will engage readers across the field of contemporary thought" Roger Brooke, Professor Emeritus, Duquesne University. "In prose reminiscient of Hillman, Alderman illuminates the myth of our era - the rejection of our embodied origi
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I would like to announce the publication of my new book - Symptom, Symbol, and the Other of Language: A Jungian Interpretation of the Linguistic Turn. A brief description and link appear below.

Every statement about language is also a statement by and about psyche. Guided by this primary assumption, and inspired by the works of Carl Jung, in Symptom, Symbol, and the Other of Language, Bret Alderman delves deep into the symbolic and symptomatic dimensions of a deconstructive postmodernism infatuated with semiotics and the workings of linguistic signs.

This book offers an important exploration of linguistic reference and representation through a Jungian understanding of symptom and symbol, using techniques including amplification, dream interpretation, and symbolic attitude. Focusing on Ferdinand de Saussure, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Richard Rorty, Alderman examines the common belief that words and their meaning are grounded purely in language, instead envisioning a symptomatic expression of alienation and collective dissociation. Drawing upon the nascent field of ecopsychology, the modern disciplines of phenomenology and depth psychology, and the ancient knowledge of myth and animistic cosmologies, Alderman dares us to re-imagine some of the more sacrosanct concepts of the contemporary intellectual milieu informed by semiotics and the linguistic turn.

Symptom, Symbol, and the Other of Language is essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of depth psychology. However, the interdisciplinary approach of the work ensures that it will also be of great interest to those researching and studying in the areas of ethology, ecopsychology, philosophy, linguistics and mythology.

Symptom, Symbol, and the Other of Language: A Jungian Interpretation of the Linguistic Turn

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