Suchergebnisse

Few days after the tragic events of September 11, Osama bin Laden invited President George W. Bush to convert to Islam. This article explores this fantasmatic "conversion offer" in order to demonstrate the hidden workings of collective hatred and its ambivalent mechanisms. Based on previous work (Yanay, 1989, 1995, 1996), this article claims that collective hatred signifies a failure to mediate between similarity and difference, closeness and separation, isolation and connectedness, at the same time that national and religious groups aspire to be included and be recognized as part of humanity.

Abstract
The multivocality of hatred is revealed through the analysis of a journal entry portraying a complicated emotional relationship between a young woman, a 6-year-old girl, and the girl's mother. Two competing readings of hatred are presented, revealing the different narrative positions from which the subject speaks. One is a psychoanalytic discourse, tracing the intrapsy-chic, object-related hurts that were reactivated from the past and projected in present experiences. The other is a constructionist reading, which focuses on conflicts over values and ideas, suggesting a communicative theory of ha-tred. It is concluded that these different voices are not hierarchical, but rather alternately dominate the text, depending on the position of the speaker and the context. The meaning of hatred is thus revealed as neither unified nor univocal. Rather, the narrative perspective mediates between childhood hurts and normative and ethical reason. It constructs two stories, both of which illustrate similar (but not identical) plots of suffering, mis-recognition, and dependency. (Social Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Construc-tionism, Emotions)

This paper argues for a pluralistic, experientially constructed self-concept of autonomy that is embodied in self-feelings and is motivationally defined. Such a motivational model of autonomy is proposed in place of the commonly accepted personality-based model, grounded in the analytic tradition in psychology. Using the self-concept approach of the interpretative school as a springboard, the paper reconceptualizes autonomy as constructed within specific social conditions. On the basis of female experience, autonomy is conceived of as a self-authoring experience emanating from the struggle to meet one's needs and achieve one's significant goals. The notions of struggle and significant goals are suggested as key concepts viable for a motivational theory of autonomy.

Invoking Butler's notion of gender performativity, Kristeva's concept of foreignness, and Laplanche's reconceptualization of otherness, the authors examine the power of fantasy to change the women and men that we always already are. Using "writing-in-response," they discuss the meaning of gender performance in relation to their theoretical commitments. The article is structured around three different forms of dialogue: (a) two lectures that the authors presented, each one contesting accepted ideas of gender, self, and society; (b) seven e-mail correspondences that develop the ideas presented in the lectures and that dramatize the transition from speaking to writing-in-response; and (c) a discussion, developed both together and separately, that raises the possibility of exploring a new language of gendered subjectivity. The article challenges the concept of "direct experience," the separation between psychology and sociology, and destabilizes the space between gender fantasy and performance.

This article focuses on a peculiar behavioural manifestation of political hatred. Hate-letters received by an Israeli political party are analysed in order to probe the dynamics involved in the communication of political hatred. The act of writing and mailing hostile letters is characterized as a particular form of political participation and interpreted as part of the social struggle over the boundaries and definition of the collective. The text of the letters is examined to uncover the main themes and mechanisms that are involved in the expression of political hatred.

Letters received by leaders of an Israeli political party, the Citizens Rights Movement, 1984-86.