A Case for Irony / Jonathan Lear.
2011
BL
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Online Access
Details
Title
A Case for Irony / Jonathan Lear.
Author
Lear, Jonathan, author.
ISBN
9780674063143
Published
Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, [2011]
Copyright
©2014
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (224 p.)
Other Standard Identifiers
10.4159/harvard.9780674063143 doi
Call Number
BL
Summary
In 2001, Vanity Fair declared that the Age of Irony was over. Joan Didion has lamented that the United States in the era of Barack Obama has become an ";irony-free zone."; Jonathan Lear in his 2006 book Radical Hope looked into America's heart to ask how might we dispose ourselves if we came to feel our way of life was coming to an end. Here, he mobilizes a squad of philosophers and a psychoanalyst to once again forge a radical way forward, by arguing that no genuinely human life is possible without irony.Becoming human should not be taken for granted, Lear writes. It is something we accomplish, something we get the hang of, and like Kierkegaard and Plato, Lear claims that irony is one of the essential tools we use to do this. For Lear and the participants in his Socratic dialogue, irony is not about being cool and detached like a player in a Woody Allen film. That, as Johannes Climacus, one of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous authors, puts it, "is something only assistant professors assume." Instead, it is a renewed commitment to living seriously, to experiencing every disruption that shakes us out of our habitual ways of tuning out of life, with all its vicissitudes. While many over the centuries have argued differently, Lear claims that our feelings and desires tend toward order, a structure that irony shakes us into seeing. Lear's exchanges with his interlocutors strengthen his claims, while his experiences as a practicing psychoanalyst bring an emotionally gripping dimension to what is at stake-the psychic costs and benefits of living with irony.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 18. Sep 2023)
Added Author
Diamond, Cora, contributor.
Korsgaard, Christine M., contributor.
Moran, Richard, contributor.
Paul, Robert A., contributor.
Korsgaard, Christine M., contributor.
Moran, Richard, contributor.
Paul, Robert A., contributor.
Series
Tanner lectures on human values : 31
In
E-BOOK GESAMTPAKET / COMPLETE PACKAGE 2011
E-BOOK PACKAGE ENGLISH LANGUAGES TITLES 2011
E-BOOK PAKET PHILOSOPHIE UND GESCHICHTE 2011
HUP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 (Canada)
Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
E-BOOK PACKAGE ENGLISH LANGUAGES TITLES 2011
E-BOOK PAKET PHILOSOPHIE UND GESCHICHTE 2011
HUP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 (Canada)
Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
Available in Other Form
print 9780674061453
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Online Access
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All Resources
Table of Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
Preface
I. The Lectures
1. To Become Human Does Not Come That Easily
2. Ironic Soul
II. Commentary
3. Self-Constitution and Irony
4. Irony, Reflection, and Psychic Unity
5. Psychoanalysis and the Limits of Reflection
6. The Immanence of Irony and the Efficacy of Fantasy
7. Thoughts about Irony and Identity
8. Flight from Irony
9. On the Observing Ego and the Experiencing Ego
10. Observing Ego and Social Voice
Notes
Commentators
Index
Contents
Preface
I. The Lectures
1. To Become Human Does Not Come That Easily
2. Ironic Soul
II. Commentary
3. Self-Constitution and Irony
4. Irony, Reflection, and Psychic Unity
5. Psychoanalysis and the Limits of Reflection
6. The Immanence of Irony and the Efficacy of Fantasy
7. Thoughts about Irony and Identity
8. Flight from Irony
9. On the Observing Ego and the Experiencing Ego
10. Observing Ego and Social Voice
Notes
Commentators
Index