Lois Oppenheim

From the outstanding contributions to the Second International Samuel Beckett Conference, held in The Hague in April 1992, Lois Oppenheim and Marius Buning, the co-organizers of that event, have culled nineteen expanded essays, arranged along thematic lines, which testify to the diversity of Beckett studies in the 1990s. The collection is divided into two major sections. Part One is devoted to considerations of gender and genre - subjects of considerable interest to Beckett scholars at the present time, since they are intimately linked by the interplay, characteristic of Beckett's work, between boundary and its undoing. In Part Two of the book, contributors look at textuality and theatricality as both dichotomous and interdependent components of Beckett's writing. Cogent arguments are offered for the development of new habits of reading and new strategies for understanding that acknowledge difference while not resorting to the objectivation of the Other in differentiation, and for coming to terms with the meaning of directorial fidelity and role, in particular of the Beckett director in relation to the psychic sensibility of the performer. Together, the essays in this collection reflect a significant geographic diversity of Beckett scholars - contributors come from eight countries in Europe, North America, and Asia - as well as the breadth of Beckett's appeal to, and the linguistic and semiotic difficulties imposed upon Beckett readers and spectators of differing cultural backgrounds.

"A Curious Intimacy is an innovative study into the interrelation between art and neuro-psychoanalysis which significantly narrows the divide between the humanities and the sciences." "Situating our grasp of the creative mind within the historical context of theories of sublimation, Lois Oppenheim proposes a change in paradigm for the study of the creative process, questioning the idea that creativity serves, above all, the reparation of early object relationships and the resolution of conflict." "A Curious Intimacy will have great appeal for all those interested in the study of imagination and creativity. It will also be of particular interest to students across the humanities and sciences and to psychotherapists and psychoanalysts wanting to explore the contribution that neuro-psychoanalysis can make to our understanding of the creative process."--Jacket.

"For Want of Ambiguity investigates how the dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience can shed light on the transformational capacity of contemporary art. Through neuroscienfitic and psychoanalytic exploration of the work of Diamante Faraldo, Ai Weiwei, Ida Barbarigo, Xavier Le Roy, Bill T. Jones, Cindy Sherman, Francis Bacon, Agnes Martin, and others, For Want of Ambiguity offers a new perspective on how insight is achieved and on how art opens us up to new ways of being."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

"This groundbreaking new study considers Samuel Beckett as a "profoundly visual" writer whose work reflects a preoccupation with the visual as creative model. While much as been written on Beckett's fiction and drama, almost nothing has appeared on his writings on art, on his preferences in painting, and on his many indirect collaborations with painters. Yet Beckett's thinking on art had everything to do with his aims as a creative writer.". "Broadly interdisciplinary, The Painted Word sheds light on Beckett's references to and exploration of the visual arts in his creative work and on the dramatic and fictive compositional strategies he shared with a number of artists. The book will appeal to scholars familiar with Beckett's work and to those interested in the dynamics of word and image interconnections."--BOOK JACKET.