{"title":"Mari Ruti","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMari Ruti\u003c\/strong\u003e explores the intricacies of human emotion and identity through a compelling fusion of philosophy and psychology. Her work delves into complex feelings and the process of self-creation, offering readers thoughtful insights into the challenges of character and desire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith a keen analytical eye, Ruti addresses topics such as emotional struggles and the creative self, inviting readers to reflect on their own psychological landscapes. Her writing challenges conventional understandings, encouraging a deeper engagement with the subtleties of the human mind.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-call-of-character-by-mari-ruti-9780231164085","title":"The Call of Character","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShould we feel inadequate when we fail to be healthy, balanced, and well-adjusted? Is it realistic or even desirable to strive for such an existential equilibrium? Condemning our current cultural obsession with cheerfulness and \"positive thinking,\" Mari Ruti calls for a resurrection of character that honours our more eccentric frequencies and argues that sometimes a tormented and anxiety-ridden life can also be rewarding.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRuti critiques the search for personal meaning and pragmatic attempts to normalise human beings' unruly and idiosyncratic natures. Exposing the tragic banality of a happy life commonly lived, she instead emphasises the advantages of a lopsided life rich in passion and fortitude. She also shows what matters is not our ability to evade existential uncertainty but our courage to meet adversity in such a way that we do not become irrevocably broken.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe are in danger of losing the capacity to cope with complexity, ambiguity, melancholia, disorientation, and disappointment, Ruti warns, leaving us feeling less \"real\" and less connected and unable to process a full range of emotions. Heeding the call of our character means acknowledging the marginalised, chaotic aspects of our being, and it is precisely these creative qualities that make us inimitable and irreplaceable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47471734161644,"sku":"9780231164085","price":56.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780231164085-the-call-of-character.jpg?v=1775251409"},{"product_id":"penis-envy-and-other-bad-feelings-by-mari-ruti-9780231186698","title":"Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMari Ruti combines theoretical reflection, cultural critique, feminist politics, and personal experience to analyse the prevalence of bad feelings in contemporary everyday life. Proceeding from a playful engagement with Freud's idea of penis envy, Ruti's autotheoretical commentary fans out to a broader consideration of neoliberal pragmatism.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eShe focuses on the emphasis on good performance, high productivity, constant self-improvement, and relentless cheerfulness that characterises present-day Western society. Revealing the treacherousness of our fantasies of the good life, particularly the idea that our efforts will eventually be rewarded—that things will eventually get better—Ruti demystifies the false hope that often causes us to tolerate an unbearable present.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTheoretically rigorous and lucidly written, \u003cem\u003ePenis Envy and Other Bad Feelings\u003c\/em\u003e is a trenchant critique of contemporary gender relations. Refuting the idea that we live in a postfeminist world where gender inequalities have been transcended, Ruti describes how neoliberal heteropatriarchy has transformed itself in subtle and stealthy, and therefore all the more insidious, ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMobilising Michel Foucault's concept of biopolitics, Jacques Lacan's account of desire, and Lauren Berlant's notion of cruel optimism, she analyses the rationalisation of intimacy, the persistence of gender stereotypes, and the pornification of heterosexual culture. Ruti shines a spotlight on the depression, anxiety, frustration, and disenchantment that frequently lie beneath our society's sugarcoated mythologies of self-fulfilment, romantic satisfaction, and professional success, speaking to all who are concerned about the emotional costs of the pressure-cooker ethos of our age.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47995493777644,"sku":"9780231186698","price":56.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780231186698-penis-envy-and-other-bad-feelings.jpg?v=1784897159"},{"product_id":"the-creative-self-by-mari-ruti-9780231218948","title":"The Creative Self","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBe the best you can be!\u003c\/em\u003e Practically from the moment we are born, we are taught to optimise our lives—to devote ourselves to increasing our productivity and efficiency, which, we are told, will make us happier and more successful. The imperative of constant self-improvement, however, drains us dry even as it promises to build us up.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Creative Self\u003c\/em\u003e delves into the hegemony of neoliberal self-optimisation and turns to psychoanalysis in search of an alternative. In paired chapters, Mari Ruti and Gail M. Newman examine the works of the psychoanalysts Marion Milner and Donald W. Winnicott. They provide deeply personal accounts of how these thinkers resonate with day-to-day life, exploring modes of selfhood that subtly but profoundly resist the lure and escape the trap of competitive individualism.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMilner urges us to relinquish the ego in the face of loss and lack, and Winnicott asks us to accept the paradoxes of the self instead of demanding their resolution. Together, their insights help us flourish where neoliberal self-improvement would stifle us.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCombining the intellectual, the personal, and the political from two perspectives that converge and diverge in striking ways, this book offers an antidote to transactional individualism and envisions forms of creative living beyond its confines.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48010621452524,"sku":"9780231218948","price":56.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780231218948-the-creative-self.jpg?v=1785154567"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/mari-ruti.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}