Books
Living on Cybermind: Categories, Communication and Control. NY: Peter Lang.
This book provides a detailed ethnographic account of the ways people use and ‘live on’ an Internet mailing list. I explore the influence of external social factors, social categories and the way that communication is structured, on self identity presentation, co-operation, community and conflict online, with special attention to the paradoxes which arise around power and the framing of communication.
‘Culture’ is presented as sets of competing knowledges, categorizations and tools for interpretation, learnt and elaborated by persons of varying degrees of interdependence. Differences in culture are a vital part of cultural dynamics. Communication is presented not as a transfer of ‘information’ but a continual process of mutual adjustment – it is an attempt to control the response of others to ensure relatively coherent interaction. Communication is partially stabilized by its ‘framings’ which provide the context for messages. Important framings in online life include: locale, mood, exchange, redundancy, etiquette, conflict, and the public/private division – including reference to a person’s body.
The organization of communication constitutes the type of Internet group. This, together with the vagueness and clustering of categories imported from the embedding society (particularly those of gender and the right/left political division), is of great importance for the kinds of co-operation, conflict and control which arise.
To exist, online ‘communities’ have to be continually presented, and are always in danger of slipping away before the influx of new members, or the instability of the established members visibility. I use the term 'asence' to explore the state of being which is intermediate between presence and absence, and which characterises people's sense of self and other online. A degree of group stability is maintained through the effects of mood, excess off-topic mails, patterns of exchange and the offlist associations which form between members - whether as subgroups or as pairs offline, or on different online groupings. This may lead to a degree of paradox as when an excessive number of mails, while expressing and enforcing group values, may also drive away those members unable to cope with the volume.
The existence of online social formations is not independent of processes in the wider societies, and the kinds of people who can, and do, become members. Many of online groups seem to be tools by which people can attempt to increase their survival networks in a time of uncertainty. As such the deployment of the term ‘community’ by members gives validity to an association. However it too can create problems, especially when the necessity for social control arises.
Renowned anthropologist Frederik Barth, wrote that the thesis this book is based upon was a “valuable and imaginative study combining substantive original data with highly original theoretical contributions” and recommended publication. Another examiner, Steve Jones, Professor of Communication at Chicago and a founder of Internet research, wrote “Marshall has managed to well engage himself in an interdisciplinary effort of the kind that should serve as a model for Internet studies” and also recommended publication. The book has also been well received by Alan Sondheim, the moderator of the list studied, who stated that it expressed the excitements, passions and difficulties of online life better than anything else he had read.
Alan later reviewed the book completely and i made a response. See
http://rccs.usfca.edu/bookinfo.asp?BookID=410&ReviewID=568
LikeDepth Psychology, Disorder and Climate Change. Sydney: JungDownunder Books
This book is an edited collection of essays, largely by Australian Jungian Psychologists dealing with the psychological aspects of Climate Change and its imagining.
We all know the facts about climate change and the arguments over those facts, but what do we understand about the psychology of dealing with the situation and the disorder associated with it? In this book seventeen writers explore our reactions largely from the perspective of Jungian Depth Psychology. Topics covered include the relationship between myth and climate change; nature and psychology; the dynamics of prophecy, poetry and science; western and non-western philosophies; nature and gender; problems with common beliefs and our ways of thinking about disorder, and more. Stories and poems add to the variety.
This is an exciting and timely book which provides insights into our whole conscious and unconscious psychologies, helping us to proceed in a more nuanced and constructive manner in our dealings with the Earth.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Jonathan Marshall Depth Psychology and Climate Change xi
1 Craig San Roque Sea Level 1
2 Robert Bosnak From Time Immemorial to Days Unforeseeable 27
3 Jonathan Marshall Climate Change is a Symbolic Event 33
4 Peter Dicker The Earth’s Subtle Body 43
5 Anne di Lauro A Dream of Water 71
6 Lenore Kulakauskas Climate Change and Western Consciousness 81
7 Interlude I Some Tales of Solomon and Sheba 107
8 Susan Murphy
Conversation with Dulumnmun, Uncle Max Harrison 113
9 Jonathan Marshall
Oedipus and Ecology: with a Note on the Holy Grail 125
10 Bronwyn Goss The Gift of the Furies Experience: March 2009 137
11 Glenda Cloughley
Climate Change and The Great Chance for Poetry 145
12 Interlude 2 From the Chang Tzu 177
13 Sally Gillespie An Elemental Imbalance 187
14 Jonathan Marshall
Depth Psychology and Social Innovation 197
15 Anne Noonan and Julie Macken Stardust 219
16 Interlude 3 Goethe ‘Aphorisms on Nature’ 237
17 Pam Stavropoulos
Unconscious Responses to Climate Change 241
18 David Tacey The Sacred from Below 265
19 Interlude 4 From ‘Hut Poems’ by Marie Tulip 277
20 Terence McBride Earth Protector or Earth Destroyer 283
21 Peter White Coping with a Climate of Change 301
22 Jacinta Frawley Musing on the Council Pickup 333
23 Jonathan Marshall On Oppositions or Differences 341
24 Lucy Davey Can these bones live? 355
25 David Tacey Entering the Dream of Nature 365
26 Sally Gillespie
Descent in the Time of Climate Change 395
27 Jonathan Marshall
Conclusion: Climate Change and Disorder 415
Bibliography 451
Authors 461
Index 471
Currently the easiest place to purchase this book from is:
http://www.gleebooks.com.au/default.asp?p=displaybook_asp?bookId=49656
Jung, Alchemy and History. Glasgow: Hermetic Research
It is well known that Jung's encounter with alchemy was important for the development of his psychology, and that his writings on the subject have a reputation for difficulty.
This book gives a brief history of alchemy, a short account of Jung's position arranged by subject, a small amount on James Hillman's use of alchemy, and some brief criticism. The aim is to provide people with enough background for them to read Jung's writings on alchemy themselves. The overall theme is that Jung's writings, while interesting, important and influential, do not exhaust the complexities of alchemy.
Jung gets much from the alchemists, they deepen tendencies within his own works, but it is extremely doubtful that he clears up the mysteries of the texts themselves. It might be possible to suggest that if the alchemist projected the secrets of their psyche onto the Work, Jung projected the secrets of his Analytic Psychology onto Alchemy.
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