ABSTRACT
The Reflexive Initiative is an authoritative intervention in the practice and tradition of reflexive social theory. It demonstrates the importance of the reflexive imperative, not only in the investigation of everyday life but across a wide range of human sciences and philosophical perspectives. Forty years after the publication of On the Beginning of Social Inquiry, the chapters in this collection range from re-appraisals of earlier essays on topics such as ‘reunions’, ‘rethinking art’ and ‘expats’ to contributions emphasising the opening of radical dialogues with other reflexive traditions and perspectives. These include psychoanalysis, Lacan, Hegel, Rene Girard, Daseinanalysis, dialectical method, critical feminism, and the dialogical tradition.
In this dialogical spirit, the book contributes to the continuing project of analytic theorizing associated with the work of Alan Blum and Peter McHugh, and the recent turn to more ‘existential’ topics and politically engaged forms of reflexive research. It will be of particular use to students working in interpretive traditions of sociology, Critical theory, Postmodern thought and debates associated with reflexivity and dialectics in other disciplines and research programmes.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|16 pages
Editors' introduction
part II|78 pages
History and contexts of analytic theory
chapter 2|76 pages
Dialectic, indebtedness, ambivalence, and the pursuit of analytic speech
part III|72 pages
Topics in analysis
part IV|94 pages
Dialogical and dialectical engagements
chapter 8|15 pages
Dasein/Analysis
chapter 10|13 pages
Collaboration and the birth of comedy
chapter 12|12 pages
Analytic desire and everyday life
part V|28 pages
Origins and prospects