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A Silvan Tomkins Handbook

Foundations for Affect Theory

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Adam J. Frank
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Elizabeth A. Wilson

The brilliant and complex theories of psychologist Silvan Tomkins (1911–1991) have inspired the turn to affect in the humanities, social sciences, and elsewhere. Nevertheless, these theories are not well understood. A Silvan Tomkins Handbook makes his theories portable across a range of interdisciplinary contexts and accessible to a wide variety of contemporary scholars and students of affect.

A Silvan Tomkins Handbook provides readers with a clear outline of Tomkins’s affect theory as he developed it in his four-volume masterwork Affect Imagery Consciousness. It shows how his key terms and conceptual innovations can be used to build robust frameworks for theorizing affect and emotion. In addition to clarifying his affect theory, the Handbook emphasizes Tomkins’s other significant contributions, from his broad theories of imagery and consciousness to more focused concepts of scenes and scripts. With their extensive experience engaging and teaching Tomkins’s work, Adam J. Frank and Elizabeth A. Wilson provide a user-friendly guide for readers who want to know more about the foundations of affect studies.

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Author Bio: Adam J. FrankAuthor Bio: Elizabeth A. Wilson
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Author Bio: Adam J. FrankAuthor Bio: Elizabeth A. Wilson

Table of Contents

  • Cover
  • Half Title Page
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Dedication
  • Contents
  • Note on Quotations
  • Introduction
  • Part I. Affect
    • 1. Drives
    • 2. The Face
    • 3. Evolution
    • 4. Freedom
    • 5. The Positive
    • 6. The Negative
    • Interlude: Tomkins and Spinoza
  • Part II. Imagery
    • 7. Images
    • 8. Theory, Weak and Strong
    • 9. Scenes and Scripts
    • 10. Ideology
    • Interlude: Tomkins and Darwin
  • Part III. Consciousness
    • 11. Psychoanalysis at the Harvard Psychological Clinic
    • 12. Cybernetics
    • 13. The Psychology of Knowledge
    • 14. The Minding System
  • Acknowledgments
  • Chronology of Tomkins’s Life and Work
  • Bibliography of Tomkins’s Published Writings
  • References
  • Index
  • About the Authors

Metadata

  • rights
    This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)—a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries—and the generous support of Emory University and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Learn more at the TOME website, available at: openmonographs.org.

    Copyright 2020 by Adam J. Frank and Elizabeth A. Wilson

    A Silvan Tomkins Handbook: Foundations for Affect Theory is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
  • isbn
    978-1-4529-6580-2
  • publisher
    University of Minnesota Press
  • publisher place
    Minneapolis, MN
  • restrictions
    Please see the Creative Commons website for details about the restrictions associated with the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
  • rights holder
    Adam J. Frank and Elizabeth A. Wilson
  • doi
    https://doi.org/10.5749/9781452965802
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