Book
Leaving you : the cultural meaning of suicide
Record details
- ISBN: 1566634962 (alk. paper)
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Physical Description:
print
xiii, 175 p. ; 22 cm. - Publisher: Chicago : Ivan R. Dee, 2003.
Content descriptions
| Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-165) and index. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Suicide Self-destructive behavior |
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| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Circulation Modifier | Holdable? | Status | Due Date | Courses |
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- Baker & Taylor
Argues that suicide is essentially a subversive act of the individual will against public authority, and uses a wide range of sources to explore Western attitudes toward the self-destructive act. - Blackwell North Amer
In Leaving You, Lisa Lieberman explores the puzzle of our reigning perception of suicide. Drawing on diverse sources, from biblical stories to Romantic novels, from philosophical theories to psychiatric diagnoses, along with contemporary memoirs of suicidal depression, she finds that the idea of suicide as an act of protest has pervaded Western attitudes toward self-destruction - yet our contemporary way of thinking attempts to deny suicide's disruptive potential by depriving the act of its defiance.
Our reluctance to recognize the right to die, to concede this right even to the terminally ill, Ms. Lieberman suggests, betrays our uneasiness with the power implied in the act of self-destruction. She aims to restore autonomy to the so-called victims by showing how suicide came to function as a vehicle for constructing one's identity. - Book News
Lieberman (modern European cultural and intellectual history, Dickinson College) explores contemporary Western attitudes about suicide, arguing that suicide is a subversive act of individual will against public authority. Aiming to restore autonomy to the so-called victims, she discusses historical attitudes towards suicide as well as depression, suicide in the terminally ill, and how suicide functions in identity construction. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) - Natl Book Network
Lieberman looks at the cultural meaning of suicide and how it has gone from being seen as subversive to self-destructive. - NBN
At heart, suicide is a subversive act: the assertion of individual will against public authority. How is it, then, that the act of suicideâone with defiant political implicationsâhas come to be viewed as the last refuge of the self-destructive victim? In Leaving You, Lisa Lieberman explores the puzzle of this reigning perception of suicide. Drawing on diverse sources, from biblical stories to Romantic novels, philosophical theories, and psychiatric diagnoses, along with contemporary memoirs of suicidal depression, she shows how the idea of suicide as an act of protest has pervaded Western attitudes toward self-destruction, yet how our contemporary view attempts to deny suicide's disruptive potential by depriving the act of its defiance. Efforts to read meaning out of suicide are not hard to find today, Ms. Lieberman finds. Therapeutic strategies that treat suicide as an illnessâmedicating the depression while ignoring the underlying motivations that drive people to end their livesâ effectively diminish individual responsibility for the decision to die. Sociological explanations that emphasize social causes over individual intentions serve to make suicides passive. Our reluctance to recognize the right to die, to concede this right even to the terminally ill, betrays our uneasiness with the power implied in the act of self-destruction. Ms. Lieberman aims to restore autonomy to the so-called victims by showing how suicide came to function as a vehicle for constructing identity.
