Becoming William James

by Feinstein, Howard M.

• ISBN13: 9780801486425
• ISBN10: 0801486424
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-07-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

For William James, work was the problem. Ultimately, going to work was the resolution, and James's quest for meaningful work remains as relevant at the end of the twentieth century as it was in the nineteenth. Weaving letters, diaries, drawings, and published texts, Becoming William James provides a convincing biographical analysis rich in detail and tone. In his new introduction, Howard M. Feinstein adds biological psychiatry to psychoanalytic and family systems theories to inform our understanding of a complex man. In addition, he discusses whether James's mental illness might have been treated with drugs.

Table of Contents

Photographs	7	(2)
Drawings	9	(2)
Introduction to the 1999 Edition	11	(4)
Preface	15	(4)
Abbreviations	19	(2)
Prologue	21	(4)
Book One: Grandfather
Tenants Become Landlords	25	(14)
Book Two: Father
A Crime against Childhood	39	(6)
Flight from Union	45	(13)
A Conflict of Wills	58	(18)
Ideology for a Prodigal	76	(13)
Words and Work	89	(14)
Book Three: Son
A Painter's Vocation	103	(14)
The Murdered Self	117	(29)
Evolution at Harvard	146	(8)
Basic Science vs. the Humbug of Medicine	154	(15)
Vacation in Brazil	169	(13)
The Use and Abuse of Illness	182	(24)
An Invalid Physician	206	(17)
A Singular Life	223	(13)
An Ontological Window	236	(15)
Two Brothers at War and a Sister at Home	251	(21)
Declining Fortunes	272	(26)
A Sort of Fatality	298	(18)
Professor James	316	(14)
Epilogue	330	(19)
Notes	349	(22)
Index	371