The Playing Self Person and Meaning in the Planetary Society

Important book from influential author, develops ideas about the self in global, information society.

The Playing Self is a groundbreaking new work from influential cultural sociologist and clinical psychologist Alberto Melucci, best known for his work on social movements and collective identities. In this book, he delves deeper into questions about the self as both a psychological and socio-cultural entity, particularly in the context of a global society for which information has become a basic resource. His phenomenological approach accounts for the self both as a site of highly subjective and intimate experiences, such as crying, laughing and loving, and in relation to social structural dynamics, through more impersonal experiences, such as the experience of time, and links of the self to politics. Melucci explores the critical search for meaning at the boundary of visible collective processes and individual day-to-day experience.

Introduction; 1. The challenge of the everyday; 2. Needs, identity, normality; 3. Metamorphosis of the multiple self; 4. The inner planet; 5. Body as limit, body as message; 6. On taking care; 7. The abyss of difference; 8. Amorous senses; 9. Inhabiting the earth; 10. A eulogy to wonder; Epilogue; Bibliographical note; References; Index.

In this groundbreaking book, Alberto Melucci delves into questions about the self, in a globalised, information society, as both a psychological and socio-cultural entity. He examines the self as the site of highly personal experiences, such as laughing and loving, and through more impersonal experiences, such as of time.