Author: Rachel Jean-Baptiste File Type: pdf Through a judicious use of archival material from all levels of the empireand oral interviews with approximately one hundred Gabonese, the author demonstrates that the growth of the city and the French empire cannot be convincingly written without a full account of the women and men who lived there, their struggles to form intimate relationships, and the strains that resulted from those relationships. Conjugal Rights has much to offer readers, more than can be discussed here. Those interested in sexuality, gender, marriage, law, colonialism, and urban history and not just in an African contextwill be richly rewarded by the book. *American Historical Review* Conjugal Rights is a history of the role of marriage and other arrangements between men and women in Libreville, Gabon, during the French colonial era, from the midnineteenth century through 1960. Conventional historiography has depicted women as few in number and of limited influence in African colonial towns, but this book demonstrates that a sexual economy of emotional, social, legal, and physical relationships between men and women indelibly shaped urban life. Bridewealth became a motor of African economic activity, as men and women promised, earned, borrowed, transferred, and absconded with money to facilitate interpersonal relationships. Colonial rule increased the fluidity of customary marriage law, as chiefs and colonial civil servants presided over multiple courts, and city residents strategically chose the legal arena in which to arbitrate a conjugal-sexual conflict. Sexual and domestic relationships with European men allowed some African women to achieve a greater degree of economic and social mobility. An eventual decline of marriage rates resulted in new sexual mores, as women and men sought to rebalance the roles of pleasure, respectability, and legality in having sex outside of kin-sanctioned marriage. Rachel Jean-Baptiste expands the discourse on sexuality in Africa and challenges conventional understandings of urban history beyond the study of the built environment. Marriage and sexual relations determined how people defined themselves as urbanites and shaped the shifting physical landscape of Libreville. Conjugal Rights takes a fresh look at questions of the historical construction of race and ethnicity. Despite the efforts of the French colonial government and society to enforce boundaries between black and white, interracial sexual and domestic relationships persisted. Black and metisse women gained economic and social capital from these relationships, allowing some measure of freedom in the colonial capital city. **

Author: Michael Oppenheim File Type: pdf Relational psychoanalysis and modern Jewish philosophy have much to say about the dynamics of human relationships, but there has been no detailed, thorough, and constructive examination that brings together these two incisive discourses. Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Modern Jewish Philosophy Two Languages of Love explores the critical similarities and differences between the two disciplines, casting new light on both the analytic and philosophical understandings of how relationships develop, flourish, and fail.??For psychoanalysts such as Hans Loewald, Stephen Mitchell, and Jessica Benjamin, love is seen as a fundamental life force, a key to human motivation, and the transformative core of Freuds therapeutic talking cure. The Jewish philosophers Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas envision love as having both a human and divine dimension, expressed through the dual commandments to love God and the neighbor. The two languages are brought to life through chapters that investigate the relationship between self-love and love of the other, the dynamics of intersubjectivity, the methods and possibilities of human transformation, the magical powers of language, the goal of achieving a meaningful life, the significance of responsibility for others, and the challenge that death poses to lifes fullness.?This multidisciplinary study, drawing on psychology, philosophy, religion, and feminism, provides an important contribution to contemporary scientific and humanistic interest in the social and relational dimensions of human living. The book will appeal especially to clinicians, theorists, and scholars of psychoanalysis, philosophy of religion, and Jewish studies as well as advanced students studying in these fields.?**Review*In this fascinating and original book, Michael Oppenheim brings modern Jewish thinkers into conversation with contemporary psychoanalysts. Comparing their profound explorations of love, death, and human relationships, he creates an intriguing conversation between disparate approaches to the human condition.-*Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College*Oppenheim has a unique ability to create dialogue between thinkers who exist on different planes and registers of meaning. In so doing, the reader is invited to listen to the stories we tell about love, relationship, responsibility and death in such a way that takes us far beyond their assumed, homogenized, and secularized forms. The dialogues that Oppenheim fosters allow us to speak about love more capaciously and with the dimension it deserves. Oppenheims sophisticated interdisciplinary scholarship is a model to be emulated.-*David M. Goodman, Ph.D., Director, Psychology and the Other InstituteTwo Languages of Love deftly weaves together rich insights from Judaism and relational psychoanalysis. Each chapter demonstrates the fresh and original insights that emerge from the confluence of these traditions. When he turns to the subject of death, for instance, Oppenheim relies on both fields to forge a rich conversation about the authentic confrontation of mortality. Clinicians will find these moves innovative and immediately relevant. The author of this book is a teacher readers of this volume are offered a compelling demonstration of the best in interdisciplinary scholarship.-Eric* Severson, Seattle University**Building on his previous publications, Oppenheim continues his path-breaking exploration of the interplay between modern Jewish philosophy and psychoanalysis. By generating an original and insightful dialogue between the Jewish philosophers Buber, Rosenzweig, and Levinas and the relational psychoanalysts, Hans Loewald, Stephen Mitchel, and Jessica Benjamin, among others, Oppenheim broadens the cultural significance of modern Jewish philosophy and enriches our understanding of recent developments in psychoanalysis. His interrogation of relationality and inter-subjectivity, of languages role in meaning-making, of meaning and responsibility, and of trust and eternity creatively bridges philosophy, psychology, and religion.-*Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Arizona State University About the Author Michael Oppenheim is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Religion at Concordia University, Montreal. His books include SpeakingWriting of God (1997), Jewish Philosophy and Psychoanalysis (2006), and Encounters of Consequence (2009).