Human Being Human : Culture and the Soul

Human Being Human explores the classical question ''What is a human being?''

In examining our human being, Christopher Hauke challenges the notion of human nature, questions the assumed superiority of human consciousness and rational thinking and pays close attention to the contradiction of living simultaneously as an autonomous individual and a member of the collective community. The main chapters include:

• who''s in charge here?
• knowledge power and human being
• that thinking feeling
• is modern consciousness different? Modern consciousness and the quest for spirituality
• endings, the unconscious and time
• Orpheus, Dionysus and popular culture.

The book is also structured around brief panel essays with a distinctly personal tone, such as: the rise of revulsion: spitting and the stones, what is the double when the original is gone? And ''I lived with the Speaking Clock''. All these themes are amplified by examples drawn from psychotherapy, film, literature and popular culture, and illustrated with many evocative photographs and film stills.

Human Being Human provides an original perspective on what it is to be a human being, the value of popular culture, the relationship between the individual and the collective and our assumptions about truth, reality and power. Written in a highly accessible style, this book is both intellectually and emotionally satisfying and will fascinate anyone interested in contemporary psychology, cultural studies, film and media, social history and psychotherapy.