
To Sit on the Earth
A Memoir
Tobie Nathan(Author)
Seagull Books London Ltd (Publisher)
Published on 22. November 2024
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-1-80309-391-8 (ISBN)
Description
A stirring memoir of exile and self-discovery by a central figure in ethno-psychiatry.
In To Sit on the Earth, pioneering ethno-psychiatrist Tobie Nathan charts his intellectual and emotional journey, from his youthful infatuation with Freud and Wilhelm Reich to his mature adoption of anthropologist Georges Devereux's ethnographic approach to psychoanalysis.
Expelled from Egypt as a Jew in 1956 when he was just a boy, Nathan spent his formative years on the outskirts of Paris. Caught up in situationist and Marxist politics, he enthusiastically participated in the revolutionary Events of May 1968. He then settled into a distinguished career as a writer, professor, and founding director of a free ethno-psychiatry clinic serving migrant populations in the French capital. Along the way, Nathan's field research and practice took him to Benin, Burundi, and Brazil, where he sought out sorcerers, shamans, and other indigenous healers. As he did so, he encountered telling echoes of his ancestors' age-old practices in Judeo-Arab Cairo.
Combining case histories and theoretical reflections with personal and familial anecdotes, while engaging with contemporary thinkers-including Sartre, Lacan, Bourdieu, and Foucault-this multi-layered, genre-defying memoir invites us to reconsider the beliefs that connect us to others and ourselves. To Sit on the Earth lays out a subtle, compelling case for the theological and cultural diversity essential to a thriving modernity.
In To Sit on the Earth, pioneering ethno-psychiatrist Tobie Nathan charts his intellectual and emotional journey, from his youthful infatuation with Freud and Wilhelm Reich to his mature adoption of anthropologist Georges Devereux's ethnographic approach to psychoanalysis.
Expelled from Egypt as a Jew in 1956 when he was just a boy, Nathan spent his formative years on the outskirts of Paris. Caught up in situationist and Marxist politics, he enthusiastically participated in the revolutionary Events of May 1968. He then settled into a distinguished career as a writer, professor, and founding director of a free ethno-psychiatry clinic serving migrant populations in the French capital. Along the way, Nathan's field research and practice took him to Benin, Burundi, and Brazil, where he sought out sorcerers, shamans, and other indigenous healers. As he did so, he encountered telling echoes of his ancestors' age-old practices in Judeo-Arab Cairo.
Combining case histories and theoretical reflections with personal and familial anecdotes, while engaging with contemporary thinkers-including Sartre, Lacan, Bourdieu, and Foucault-this multi-layered, genre-defying memoir invites us to reconsider the beliefs that connect us to others and ourselves. To Sit on the Earth lays out a subtle, compelling case for the theological and cultural diversity essential to a thriving modernity.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Greenford
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 150 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
431 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80309-391-8 (9781803093918)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Tobie Nathan is professor emeritus of psychology at Universite-Paris VIII in France. He is the author of a dozen novels and numerous psychoanalytic studies. Joyce Zonana is a writer, literary translator, and professor emerita of English at the City University of New York. Janet Lee is a translator, essayist, and editor from rural Nevada currently based in Brooklyn. She is the host of Another Way to Say, a reading series in translation, and a communications coordinator for the Wildenstein Plattner Institute and the Fonds WPI.
Content
1.My Name Is Tobie Nathan
2.To Sit on the Earth
3.Weissmuller
4.Feast Day
5.Dobo and Ayato
6.Tyrone Power
7.Natacha and Louisa
8.George Sand
9.Anthony Perkins
10.Ouedraogo
11.Prudence
12.Amokrane in Parliament
2.To Sit on the Earth
3.Weissmuller
4.Feast Day
5.Dobo and Ayato
6.Tyrone Power
7.Natacha and Louisa
8.George Sand
9.Anthony Perkins
10.Ouedraogo
11.Prudence
12.Amokrane in Parliament