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Ja: La ciencia de cuándo reímos y por qué
by Scott WeemsJa. La ciencia de cuando reímos y por qué Un libro que se toma en serio el tema del humor Lo reconocemos nada más verlo, pero es difícil definir el humor. En esta fascinante investigación, Scott Weems analiza, desde un punto de vista neurológico, pero también psicológico, antropológico y cultural, los mecanismos y resortes de la risa, así como sus beneficios probados. Tratar de explicar una broma es un despropósito, pero eso no ha impedido a los pensadores, de Aristóteles a Bergson, pasando por Kant y Nietzsche, construir amplias y sutiles teorías de la risa. Sin embargo, ninguno de ellos contaba con la información que aporta un escáner. ¿Sabías que el sentido del humor está estrechamente relacionado con la inteligencia o con la capacidad para resolver problemas? ¿Y que también depende de la edad, del sexo, de la nacionalidad o del nivel de dopamina? El humor surge de un conflicto interno en el cerebro, y forma parte de nuestro proceso de comprensión de este mundo complejo. Desde el papel del humor negro hasta el beneficio de la risa para nuestro sistema inmunológico, Ja levanta el telón sobre la más humana de las cualidades. Del mismo modo que los ordenadores no son capaces de apreciar la ironía, ningún libro de autoayuda conseguirá convertirnos en personas graciosas. Ja, basado en las últimas investigaciones e ilustrado con reveladoras anécdotas -e incluso algunos chistes-, revela, no obstante, numerosas claves para incorporar el humor a nuestras vidas La crítica ha dicho...«La risa quema calorías, baja la glucosa en los diabéticos y mejora el sistema inmunológico. Este libro es una respuesta a enigmas e incongruencias que los utopistas resuelven en abstracciones dogmáticas y que la risa revela como locura.»ABC (Cultural) «Weems maneja una impresionante cantidad de estudios y estadísticas para apoyar sus tesis. Muestra que procesamos chistes de un modo casi idéntico a la forma en que abordamos los problemas, y que, en caso de éxito, generamos un torrente de dopamina. Una convincente defensa del lado cómico de la vida.»Financial Times «Scott Weems muestra en qué lugar de nuestra cabeza reside la gracia.»Washington Post «La obra de Scott Weems es un compendio excelente de las últimas teorías acerca del humor en el cerebro que explica de forma amena y entretenida los recientes avances de la neurociencia en este campo.»La Razón «El humor es como el ejercicio del cerebro, dice Weems: tal vez no alargue la vida, pero la hace más saludable; o al menos, más divertida.»Diario de Navarra «Basándose tanto en las más recientes investigaciones neurocientíficas como en divertidas anécdotas, el autor huye del reduccionismo y defiende la idea de que el humor es más complejo que otras emociones y percepciones.»The Scientist «Un estimulante repaso de los descubrimientos que se han hecho sobre por qué reímos.»Kirkus Reviews «Según Weems el humor nos ayuda a establecer un poco de orden en un mundo desordenado. Ja revela los mecanismos internos del humor con todo el brío que requiere la materia.»Psychology Today «Weems hace una buena defensa de cómo el humor saca lo mejor de nosotros, y de la necesidad de reír más.»The New York Times «La risa sigue siendo una especie de enigma, pero vale la pena adentrarse en ella. Una alegre mirada hacia lo que es, para qué sirve y por qué debemos cultivarla.»Nature
Ja zum Nein: Selbstachtung Statt Harmoniesucht - Mit Sofort-übungen Für Den Beruflichen Alltag
by Kirstin NickelsenDieses Buch ist ein echter Selbstschutz-Leitfaden für alle, denen Grenzen setzen schwer fällt. Ihnen kommt ein „Nein“ zu Mehrarbeit oder Gefälligkeiten nur schwer über die Lippen, obwohl der eigene Schreibtisch schon randvoll ist. Stattdessen bleibt der hilflose Ärger über Chefs und Kollegen: „Immer ich, mit mir kann man es ja machen!“. Privat läuft es ähnlich, doch irgendwann ist das Maß voll, sind die Batterien leer. Davor schützt nur gekonntes „Nein“-Sagen – und das will gelernt sein. Wer nicht gut „Nein“ sagen kann, hat in der Regel Angst: vor dem Verlust des Jobs, vor dem Verlust von Zuneigung, Wertschätzung etc. Die Autorin hinterfragt diese Ängste und zeigt Wege, sie einfach und souverän zu bewältigen, eigene Grenzen zu erkennen und diese voll Selbstrespekt zu wahren. So gewinnt sich der Leser wieder als wichtigsten Menschen im eigenen Leben. Zahlreiche praktische Übungen, die sofort in die Tat umgesetzt werden können, machen dieses Buch zu einem besonders wertvollen Alltagshelfer. Die dritte Auflage wurde sorgfältig durchgesehen.
The Jacobs Foundation Series on Adolescence: Self-Regulation in Adolescence
by Oettingen, Gabriele and Gollwitzer, Peter M. Gabriele Oettingen Peter M. GollwitzerDuring the transition from childhood to adulthood, adolescents face a unique set of challenges that accompany increased independence and responsibility. This volume combines cutting-edge research in the field of adolescence and the field of motivation and self-regulation to shed new light on these challenges and the self-regulation tools that could most effectively address them. Leading scholars discuss general principles of the adolescent period across a wide variety of areas, including interpersonal relationships, health and achievement. Their interdisciplinary approach covers perspectives from history, anthropology and primatology, as well as numerous subdisciplines of psychology - developmental, educational, social, clinical, motivational, cognitive and neuropsychological. Self-Regulation in Adolescence stresses practical applications, making it a valuable resource not only for scholars, but also for adolescents and their family members, teachers, social workers and health professionals who seek to support them. It presents useful strategies that adolescents can adopt themselves and raises important questions for future research.
Jacob's Ladder: Essays on Experiences of the Ineffable in the Context of Contemporary Psychotherapy
by Josephine KleinThis book considers mysticism – a world of ineffable experience – to see if it might have anything to teach those in the therapeutic world, invites the reader to look at newer ways of psychoanalytic thinking, and uses writers of the past to help illuminate contemporary issues.
Jacques Lacan: An Annotated Bibliography (Routledge Library Editions: Lacan)
by Michael P. ClarkThis bibliography in two volumes, originally published in 1988, lists and describes works by and about Jacques Lacan published in French, English, and seven other languages including Japanese and Russian. It incorporates and corrects where necessary all information from earlier published bibliographies of Lacan’s work. Also included as background works are books and essays that discuss Lacan in the course of a more general study, as well as all relevant items in various bibliographic sources from many fields.
Jacques Lacan: An Annotated Bibliography (Routledge Library Editions: Lacan)
by Michael P. ClarkThis bibliography in two volumes, originally published in 1988, lists and describes works by and about Jacques Lacan published in French, English, and seven other languages including Japanese and Russian. It incorporates and corrects where necessary all information from earlier published bibliographies of Lacan’s work. Also included as background works are books and essays that discuss Lacan in the course of a more general study, as well as all relevant items in various bibliographic sources from many fields.
Jacques Lacan
by Anika LemaireThe work of Jaques Lacan, eminent French psychoanalyst and influential thinker (1901-1981), is recognized as being of vital importance to psychoanalysts, philosophers, and all those concerned with the the study of man and language. Its value is not limited to the field of psychoanalysis alone, but provides the basis for a new philosophy of man and a new theory of discourse. It is, however, notoriously difficult for the non-specialist reader to come to terms with Lacan's reading of Freud and his investigations of the unconscious. Until now, there has been no satisfactory general introduction to Lacan, and this first general exposition of his work, translated and revised from the French edition, is designed to provide the conceptual tools which will enable the reader to study Lacan using the original texts.
Jacques Lacan: The Basics (The Basics)
by Calum NeillJacques Lacan: The Basics provides a clear and succinct introduction to the work of Jacques Lacan, one of the key thinkers of the twentieth century. Lacan’s ideas are applied in the study of the humanities, politics, and psychology as well as contemporary media and the arts, but their complexity makes them impenetrable to many. This book is unique in explaining the key concepts and context, from Lacan’s understanding of psychoanalysis to drive and desire, in an accessible way without diluting them beyond meaning. Examples from popular culture are used throughout to emphasise the ideas being discussed and a full glossary and list of resources for further reading encourages additional exploration. This engaging and accessible text is essential reading for all those interested in Lacan and his work, as well as students of psychology, psychoanalysis, literature, politics, cultural studies, film studies, and more.
Jacques Lacan and American Sociology: Be Wary of the Image (The Palgrave Lacan Series)
by Duane RousselleIn this Palgrave Pivot, Duane Rousselle aims to disrupt the hold that pragmatist ideology has had over American sociology by demonstrating that the social bond has always been founded upon a fundamental and primordial bankruptcy. Using the Lacanian theory of “capitalist discourse,” Rousselle demonstrates that most of early American sociology suffered from an inadequate account of the “symbolic” within the mental and social lives of the individual subject. The psychoanalytic aspect of the social bond remained theoretically undeveloped in the American context. Instead it is the “image,” a product of the imaginary, which takes charge over any symbolic function. This intervention into pragmatic sociology seeks to recover the tradition of “grand theory” by bringing psychoanalytical and sociological discourse into fruitful communication with one another.
Jacques Lacan and Cinema: Imaginary, Gaze, Formalisation
by Pietro BianchiPsychoanalysis has always been based on the eclipse of the visual and on the primacy of speech. The work of Jacques Lacan though, is strangely full of references to the visual field, from the intervention on the mirror stage in the Forties to the elaboration of the object-gaze in the Sixties. As a consequence, a long tradition of film studies used Lacanian psychoanalysis in order to explain the influence of the subject of the unconscious on the cinematographic experience. What is less known is how the late Lacanian reflection on the topic of analytic formalization opened up a further dimension of the visual that goes beyond the subjective experience of vision: not in the direction of a mystical ineffable but rather toward a subtractive mathematisation of space, as in non-Euclidean geometries. In an exhaustive overview of the whole Lacanian theorization of the visual, counterpointed by a confrontation with several thinkers of cinema (Eisenstein, Straub-Huillet, Deleuze, Ranciere), the book will lead the reader toward the discovery of the most counterintuitive approaches of Lacanian psychoanalysis to the topic of vision.
Jacques Lacan and the Freudian Practice of Psychoanalysis (Makers of Modern Psychotherapy)
by Dany NobusJacques Lacan and the Freudian Practice of Psychoanalysis paints a completely new picture of the man and his ideas. The book suceeds in showing how ideas can become more accessible, and re-evaluates his significance within the field of psychodynamic psychotherapy.The book is structured thematically around five key issues: diagnosis, the analyst's position during the treatment, the management of transference, the formulation of interpretations, and the organisation of analytic training. For each of these issues, Lacan's entire work both published and unpublished material, has been taken into account and theoretical principles have been illustrated with clinical examples. The book also contains the first complete bibliography of Lacan's works in English.Clear, detailed, and wide ranging, Jacques Lacan and the Freudian Practice of Psychoanalysis will prove essential reading, not only for professionals and students within the fields of psychology and psychiatry, but for all those keen to discover a new Lacan.
Jacques Lacan and the Logic of Structure: Topology and language in psychoanalysis
by Ellie RaglandLacan postulated that the psyche can be understood by means of certain structures, which control our lives and our desires, and which operate differently at different logical moments or stages of formation. Jacques Lacan and the Logic of Structure offers us a reading of the major concepts of Lacan in terms of his later topological theory and aims to show how this was always a concern for Lacan and not only an issue in the last seminars. Ellie Ragland discusses how various stages of formation can be uncovered topologically within language itself, and operate to place certain properties – fantasy, the drive, jouissance, discourse and ethics in language itself. In this way she explores not only how language actually works in tandem with the properties, but also gives a different idea of what knowledge actually is and what implications that may have for reimagining and reworking differential/diagnostic structures. Jacques Lacan and the Logic of Structure is a compelling exponent of the innovative approaches Lacan takes to rethinking what psychoanalysis is and what it can do to enlighten psychoanalysts and treat patients. It will be essential reading to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists training graduate students in the fields of film, literary, gender and cultural studies.
Jacques Lacan and the Other Side of Psychoanalysis: Reflections on Seminar XVII sic 6
by Justin Clemens Russell GriggThis collection is the first extended interrogation in any language of Jacques Lacan's Seminar XVII. Originally delivered just after the Paris uprisings of May 1968, Seminar XVII marked a turning point in Lacan's thought; it was both a step forward in the psychoanalytic debates and an important contribution to social and political issues. Collecting important analyses by many of the major Lacanian theorists and practitioners, this anthology is at once an introduction, critique, and extension of Lacan's influential ideas. The contributors examine Lacan's theory of the four discourses, his critique of the Oedipus complex and the superego, the role of primal affects in political life, and his prophetic grasp of twenty-first-century developments. They take up these issues in detail, illuminating the Lacanian concepts with in-depth discussions of shame and guilt, literature and intimacy, femininity, perversion, authority and revolt, and the discourse of marketing and political rhetoric. Topics of more specific psychoanalytic interest include the role of objet a, philosophy and psychoanalysis, the status of knowledge, and the relation between psychoanalytic practices and the modern university. Contributors. Geoff Boucher, Marie-Hlne Brousse, Justin Clemens, Mladen Dolar, Oliver Feltham, Russell Grigg, Pierre-Gilles Guguen, Dominique Hecq, Dominiek Hoens, ric Laurent, Juliet Flower MacCannell, Jacques-Alain Miller, Ellie Ragland, Matthew Sharpe, Paul Verhaeghe, Slavoj Žižek, Alenka Zupancic
Jacques Lacan, Past and Present: A Dialogue
by Alain Badiou Elisabeth RoudinescoIn this dialogue, Alain Badiou shares the clearest, most detailed account to date of his profound indebtedness to Lacanian psychoanalysis. He explains in depth the tools Lacan gave him to navigate the extremes of his other two philosophical "masters," Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser. Élisabeth Roudinesco supplements Badiou's experience with her own perspective on the troubled landscape of the French analytic world since Lacan's death—critiquing, for example, the link (or lack thereof) between politics and psychoanalysis in Lacan's work. Their exchange reinvigorates how the the work of a pivotal twentieth-century thinker is perceived.
Jacques Rancière: Pädagogische Lektüren
by Ralf Mayer Alfred Schäfer Steffen WittigEs sind die zugleich politischen und ästhetischen Einsatzpunkte Jacques Rancières, die das pädagogische Nachdenken herausfordern: Angesprochen sind damit etwa die Intervention in ein- wie ausschließende ‚Ordnungen des Sinnlichen‘, die Artikulation eines ‚Unvernehmens‘ über die Unterstellung von je spezifischen Gleichheitsmotiven und das Plädoyer für ein ästhetisches Regime, das in unterschiedlichen Feldern definitive und privilegierte Sichtweisen irritiert. Diese Herausforderungen gelten nicht nur für Begründungen und Qualifizierungen von Praktiken und Institutionen; ebenso erscheinen pädagogische Problemstellungen stets disziplinübergreifend in Spannungsfeldern von Politik und (polizeilicher) Ordnung situiert.
Jacques the Sophist: Lacan, Logos, and Psychoanalysis
by Barbara CassinSophistry, since Plato and Aristotle, has been philosophy’s negative alter ego, its bad other. Yet sophistry’s emphasis on words and performativity over the fetishization of truth makes it an essential part of our world’s cultural, political, and philosophical repertoire. In this dazzling book, Barbara Cassin, who has done more than anyone to reclaim a mode of thought that traditional philosophy disavows, shows how the sophistical tradition has survived in the work of psychoanalysis.In a highly original rereading of the writings and seminars of Jacques Lacan, together with works of Freud and others, Cassin shows how psychoanalysis, like the sophists, challenges the very foundations of scientific rationality. In taking seriously equivocations, jokes, and unfinishable projects of interpretation, the analyst, like the sophist, allows performance, signifier, and inconsistency to reshape truth.This witty, brilliant tour de force celebrates how psychoanalysts have become our culture’s key dissidents and register, in Lacan’s words, “the presence of the sophist in our time.”
Jähzorn: Psychotherapeutische Antworten auf ein unberechenbares Gefühl
by Theodor IttenDie zerstörerische Wucht des Jähzorns ist bekannt, sozialwissenschaftlich wurde sie bisher tabuisiert. Beruflich und privat sind wir Zeugen von Ausbrüchen des Jähzorns. Zur Untermauerung dieser Beobachtungen wurden an die 600 Personen zu ihren persönlichen Erfahrungen mit Jähzorn befragt. Das Ergebnis: 24 % der Befragten sind jähzornig. Das im Jahr 2007 erstmalig, im deutschsprachigen Raum, veröffentlichte Buch zum plötzlichen, anfallsmässigen Zorn, bietet einen vielschichtigen, interessanten Gang durch die Kulturgeschichte und Sozialpsychologie des Jähzorns. Es gibt Antworten auf folgende Fragen: „Wo kommt der Jähzorn her? Wie zeigt sich Jähzorn? Was können wir tun?“ Verschiedene Perspektiven und Erfahrungen von Täter und Opfer werden geschildert und im sozialkulturellen Kontext erläutert. Bewegende Einzelfallstudien liefern zahlreiche hilfreiche Hinweise und Einsichten zum Verständnis des Jähzorns. Die psychotherapeutischen Antworten auf dieses unberechenbare Gefühl sind in der dritten, überarbeiteten Auflage, vielfältigere und facettenreichere Quellen. Möglichkeiten von therapeutischen Aspekten der Selbstbefähigung werden aufgezeigt, mit gepflegter, dauerhafter Übung sind sie auch umsetzbar. Ein Buch für Betroffene, Angehörige und Wirkende in helfenden, therapeutischen Berufen.
Jähzorn: Psychotherapeutische Antworten auf ein unberechenbares Gefühl
by Theodor IttenDie zerstörerische Wucht des Jähzorns ist bekannt, sozialwissenschaftlich wurde sie bisher tabuisiert. Beruflich und privat sind wir Zeugen von Ausbrüchen des Jähzorns. Zur Untermauerung dieser Beobachtungen wurden an die 600 Personen zu ihren persönlichen Erfahrungen mit Jähzorn befragt. Das Ergebnis: 24 % der Befragten sind jähzornig. Das im Jahr 2007 erstmalig, im deutschsprachigen Raum, veröffentlichte Buch zum plötzlichen, anfallsmässigen Zorn, bietet einen vielschichtigen, interessanten Gang durch die Kulturgeschichte und Sozialpsychologie des Jähzorns. Es gibt Antworten auf folgende Fragen: „Wo kommt der Jähzorn her? Wie zeigt sich Jähzorn? Was können wir tun?“ Verschiedene Perspektiven und Erfahrungen von Täter und Opfer werden geschildert und im sozialkulturellen Kontext erläutert. Bewegende Einzelfallstudien liefern zahlreiche hilfreiche Hinweise und Einsichten zum Verständnis des Jähzorns. Die psychotherapeutischen Antworten auf dieses unberechenbare Gefühl sind in der zweiten, überarbeiteten Auflage, vielfältigere und facettenreichere Quellen. Möglichkeiten zum Selbstmanagement werden aufgezeigt, mit gepflegter, dauerhafter Übung sind sie auch umsetzbar. Ein Buch für Betroffene, Angehörige und Wirkende in helfenden, therapeutischen Berufen.
Jailhouse Informants: Psychological and Legal Perspectives (Psychology and Crime)
by Jeffrey S Neuschatz Jonathan M GoldingOffers a new understanding of jailhouse informants and the role they play in wrongful convictions Jailhouse informants—witnesses who testify in a criminal trial, often in exchange for some incentive—are particularly persuasive to jurors. A jailhouse informant usually claims to have heard the defendant confess to a crime while they were incarcerated together. Research shows that such testimony increases the likelihood of a guilty verdict. But it is also a leading contributor to wrongful convictions. Informants, after all, are generally criminals who are offering testimony in return for some key motivator, such as a reduced sentence. This book offers a broad overview of the history and legal and psychological issues surrounding the testimony of jailhouse informants. It provides groundbreaking psychological research to address how they are used, the number of convictions that have ultimately been overturned on other evidence, how such informants are perceived in the courtroom, and by what means jurors might be informed about the risks of this type of testimony. The volume provides a much-needed examination of legal remedies to the impact of jailhouse informants and suggests best practices in dealing with jailhouse informant testimony in court. There is a critical need to understand the influence of jailhouse informants and how their testimony can best be handled in court in the interests of justice. Jailhouse Informants is the first work of its kind that rises to the challenge of answering these difficult questions.
James Buchanan
by David ReismanJames Buchanan (1919-2013) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1986 for his synthesis of market economics and political democracy. A libertarian, a contractarian, a constitutionalist, Buchanan saw the social world as a network of individuals revealing preferences and negotiating exchanges. Self-interest that might otherwise have led to the war of each against all is channelled into the division of labour and capitalism by consent. Trade gives rational individuals the opportunity to increase each other's felt well-being. Gain-seeking anarchy is the economist's utopia but still a protective State is needed to ensure that agreements are honoured and the rules obeyed. Buchanan made himself a missionary for binding agreements and good rules. Without them, he warned, we would surely fight. Using morals when other economists used mathematics, Buchanan argued a market economist's case for tolerance of diversity, unanimity of consensus and uncompromising respect. This book, James Buchanan, seeks to explain and evaluate the thought-provoking insights of a prolific and original thinker who enriched the ethical aspirations of a frequently dismal science.
James F. Masterson: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis)
by Loray DawsIn this volume, Loray Daws traces the life and work of Dr. James F. Masterson, with a focus on the scientific development and later expansion of the six developmental stages of the Masterson Method. Exploring more than 15 of Masterson’s volumes, as well as countless articles, Daws shows how Masterson’s approach to Object Relations and the developmental self can serve clinicians in both conceptualizing and treating borderline, narcissistic, and schizoid disorders of self. Considering the pioneering and innovative nature of Masterson’s work, Daws looks at how he creatively expanded on Freud’s theories on repression, successfully developing therapeutically sound ways to touch and transform developmental trauma and trauma reflected in a deep abandonment depression. James F. Masterson: A Contemporary Introduction will be of interest to students in psychology, psychiatry, and psychiatric nursing, as well as psychoanalytically orientated psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, and those specializing in the ever-growing field of the treatment of the disorders of the self.
James Joyce and the Internal World of the Replacement Child (Routledge Focus on Mental Health)
by Mary AdamsThis book is an exploration of the internal world of James Joyce with particular emphasis on his being born into his parents’ grief at the loss of their firstborn son, offering a new perspective on his emotional difficulties. Mary Adams links Joyce’s profound sense of guilt and abandonment with the trauma of being a ‘replacement child’ and compares his experience with that of two psychoanalytic cases, as well as with Freud and other well-known figures who were replacement children. Issues such as survivor guilt, sibling rivalry, the ‘illegitimate’ replacement son, and the ‘dead mother’ syndrome are discussed. Joyce is seen as maturing from a paranoid, fearful state through his writing, his intelligence, his humour and his sublime poetic sensibility. By escaping the oppressive aspects of life in Dublin, in exile he could find greater emotional freedom and a new sense of belonging. A quality of claustrophobic intrusive identification in Ulysses contrasts strikingly with a new levity, imaginative identification, intimacy and compassion in Finnegans Wake. James Joyce and the Internal World of the Replacement Child highlights the concept of the replacement child and the impact this can have on a whole family. The book will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and child psychotherapists as well as students of English literature, psychoanalytic studies and readers interested in James Joyce.
James Tobin
by Robert W. DimandJames Tobin, 1981 Nobel laureate in economics, was the outstanding monetary economist among American Keynesian economists. This book, the first written about James Tobin, examines his leading role as a Keynesian macroeconomist and monetary economist, and considers the continuing relevance of his ideas.
Jamilah at the End of the World
by Mary-Lou ZeitounSeventeen-year-old Jamilah Monsour makes plans for what she's certain is the beginning of the climate change catastrophe that will end the world. Luckily, Jamilah knows what has to be done to save her family: reluctantly her parents allow her to transform the back alley garage into a bunker, but they draw the line when she announces she’s going to skip university and instead use the money they had saved for her education to buy solar panels and a generator. When an electricity blackout strikes, Jamilah's climate change anxiety kicks into high gear and she ends up staying out all night, infuriating her father who is done with all this doomsday nonsense. Distributed in the U.S by Lerner Publishing Group.
Jane on the Brain: Exploring The Science Of Social Intelligence With Jane Austen
by Wendy JonesAn Austen scholar and therapist reveals Jane Austen's intuitive ability to imbue her characters with hallmarks of social intelligence—and how these beloved works of literature can further illuminate the mind-brain connection. Why is Jane Austen so phenomenally popular? Why do we read Pride and Prejudice again and again? Why do we delight in Emma’s mischievous schemes? Why do we care that Anne Elliot of Persuasion suffers? We care because it is our biological destiny to be interested in people and their stories—the human brain is a social brain. And Austen’s characters are so believable, that for many of us, they are not just imaginary beings, but friends whom we know and love. And thanks to Austen's ability to capture the breadth and depth of human psychology so thoroughly, we feel that she empathizes with us, her readers. Humans have a profound need for empathy, to know that we are not alone with our joys and sorrows. And then there is attachment, denial, narcissism, and of course, love, to name a few. We see ourselves and others reflected in Austen’s work. Social intelligence is one of the most highly developed human traits when compared with other animals How did is evolve? Why is it so valuable? Wendy Jones explores the many facets of social intelligence and juxtaposes them with the Austen cannon. Brilliantly original and insightful, this fusion of psychology, neuroscience, and literature provides a heightened understanding of one of our most beloved cultural institutions—and our own minds.