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Friendship
Peter Murphy (special issue editor)
Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press, 1998
ISBN: 0822364565
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Book description
After the culture wars of the past two decades, a turn toward a
more constructive and convivial social analysis and critique is occurring
today. Along with such themes as cosmopolitanism and ethical politics, the
idea of friendship has emerged as central to this new constructivism. Lying
at the intersections of ethics and politics as well as eroticism and
companionship, friendship involves the personal and the public, sacrifice
and joy, need and choice, spirit and body. While giving pleasure, it can
also make great moral demands on us all. While friendship was often
discussed by the ancients, moderns have had much less to say on the topic.
Leading us into a dialogue with the ancients, the contributors offer a
series of far-reaching encounters. Nietzsche debates the meaning of
friendship with Socrates; Horatio fulfils the ancient desideratum of the
“true friend” in telling Hamlet’s story; and philia becomes the core
of a radical ethic through a reconstruction of Marx’s Epicurean ideals.
Friendship is also analysed as the model of a non-narcissistic psychology,
on the one hand, and of a “mafia of idealists”—the French Resistance—on the
other. Moreover, milieus of friendship are revealed as a unique crucible of
creativity for the Benjamin-Bloch cohort in 1920s southern Italy, for
Wittgenstein and his Cambridge followers in the 1930s, and for American jazz
musicians of the 1950s.
About the author
Peter Murphy is an Associate Professor in the School of
English, Communications and Performance Studies, Faculty of Arts, Monash
University.
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