Redirecting examinations of the culture of the city away from its customs, art, and amenities to focus on the mental life of modern society, Alan Blum explores the methods cities and their subjects use to find meaning in the context of urban life, in particular the city’s relationships to social change and what has traditionally been identified as justice.The Material City pictures the city as a landscape of diverse clashes over beliefs, a site that exhibits interpretive c...

The anxiety over death persists in everyday life- though often denied or repressed- lingering as an unconscious worry or intuition that typically seems to compromise one’s feelings of well-being and experience in a range of areas; coming out often as malaise, depression, and anger in much conduct. If one accepts the cliché that life is preparation for death, we must accept that the lived experience of the dying body is not highlighted merely in obvious cases of deterioration such as in the...

Most discussions of health care center on medical advances, cost, and the roles of insurers and government agencies. With The Grey Zone of Health and Illness, Alan Blum offers a new perspective, outlining a highly nuanced theoretical approach to health and health care alike. Drawing on a range of thinkers, Blum explains how our current understanding of health care tends to posit it as a sort of state of permanent emergency, like the nuclear standoff of the Cold War. To move beyond...

The problem of how to understand and to treat masochism has plagued the vast majority of clinicians. The Clinical Problem of Masochism, edited by Deanna Holtzman, PhD, and Nancy Kulish, PhD, focuses on the common and difficult clinical problems posed by masochistic patients who are spread throughout all diagnostic categories. Foremost psychoanalytic clinicians in the field from various theoretical backgrounds demonstrate their approaches to working clinically with these problems. Each expe...

This book, first published in 1978, is a radical approach to the philosophical distinction between Being and beings, in which the life of Socrates is used as the metaphor for the theoretical life, in contrast to the continuous historical interest in that life as an object for biographical reconstruction and description. Professor Blum’s main concern is to develop a story that coordinates stages of the theoretical life to practices which exemplify man’s ideal relationship with language.

The ultimate, all-in-one resource on what the Old Testament says about JesusAs Jesus walked the Emmaeus road, he showed his companions how the whole of Scripture foretold his coming. Yet so often today we’re not quite sure how to talk about Jesus in the Old Testament. How do you know what applies to Jesus? And how do you interpret some of the strange prophetic language?Get answers and clarity in this authoritative and reliable guide to messianic prophecy fr...

Excerpt from Conference Address One of the most complex and significant social issues facing our nation is reform of our national health system. I am personally committed, and Goodyear Tire & Rubber is committed, to doing everything we can to help improve that system while simultaneously gaining some measure of control over the tremen dous rate of cost escalation. I feel very strongly that in the months ahead, business leaders must become actively involved in a concerted effort to strike a...

Beginning with a focus on the ethical foundations of caregiving in health and expanding towards problems of ethics and justice implicated in a range of issues, this book develops and expands the notion of care itself and its connection to practice.Organised around the themes of culture as a restraint on caregiving in different social contexts and situations, innovative methods in healthcare, and the way in which culture works to position care as part of a rhetorical approach to dep...