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The Individual, Communication, and Society

The Individual, Communication, and Society

The Individual, Communication, and Society

Essays in Memory of Gregory Bateson
Robert W. Rieber
April 2010
Available
Paperback
9780521134170
£36.99
GBP
Paperback
GBP
Hardback

    The Individual, Communication, and Society is a collection of original essays on communication written by leading scholars in honor of the work of the late Gregory Bateson. Bateson, who began his career as a zoologist at Cambridge University, was one of the most provocative social scientists of the twentieth century. His major contribution was a theory of communication that integrated biological, psychological, and social phenomena. The theory had an important impact on the thinking of a number of influential anthropologists, psychologists, zoologists, and psychiatrists, who found Bateson's ideas not only relevant in their own research settings, but productive for the practical insights they offered into the nature of broader cultural systems. All of the chapters were written by scholars whose own work has been inspired by Bateson. The contributions are diverse, but each extends the implications of Bateson's concepts to the problems of human communication. The volume is designed not only as a tribute to Gregory Bateson, but also as an effort to advance the study of diverse problems involving communication across disciplinary boundaries that engaged Bateson in his lifetime.

    Product details

    April 2010
    Paperback
    9780521134170
    360 pages
    229 × 152 × 20 mm
    0.53kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Preface
    • 1. In search of the impertinent question: an overview of Bateson's theory of communication Robert W. Rieber
    • Part I. Mending the Connection Between Mind and Society:
    • 2. Power, method, and ethics: a reflection on Bateson's view of moral and national character David Bakan
    • 3. The psychopathy of everyday life: antisocial behaviour and social distress Robert W. Rieber and Maurice Green
    • 4. Bateson's concept of mental illness Theodore Skolnik
    • Part II. Language and Communication in Context:
    • 5. Language, languages, and song: the experience of systems (1968) Mary Catherine Bateson
    • 6. Affective and communicative problems in young, developmentally deviant language users Theodore Shapiro and Elena Goldstein Lister
    • 7. A cross-cultural study of language universals: the emotional meaning of iconic and graphic stimuli Robert W. Rieber, Oliver S. Tzeng and Carl Wiedmann
    • 8. Machine dreams: computers in the fantasies of young adults John M. Broughton
    • Part III. Mind and Paralinguistic Communication:
    • 9. In search of coronary-prone behaviour Aron W. Siegman
    • 10. Two principles of communicative functioning Norbert Freedman
    • Part IV. Dialogues and Dialectics:
    • 11. Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) and Oscar Wilde (1854–1900): a heavenly discourse Peter Ostwald
    • 12. Body and mind: a dialogue Gregory Bateson and Robert W. Rieber
    • Index.
      Contributors
    • Robert W. Rieber, David Bakan, Maurice Green, Theodore Skolnik, Mary Catherine Bateson, Theodore Shapiro, Elena Goldstein Lister, Oliver S. Tzeng, Carl Wiedmann, John M. Broughton, Aron W. Siegman, Norbert Freedman, Peter Ostwald, Gregory Bateson

    • Editor
    • Robert W. Rieber