Tom Conley

Bio: Tom Conley is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Church history & World history. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 8 citations.

Yearnings of the Soul: Psychological Thought in Modern Kabbalah

Abstract: In Yearnings of the Soul, Jonathan Garb uncovers a crucial thread in the story of modern Kabbalah and modern mysticism more generally: psychology. Returning psychology to its roots as an attempt to understand the soul, he traces the manifold interactions between psychology and spirituality that have arisen over five centuries of Kabbalistic writing, from sixteenth-century Galilee to twenty-first-century New York. In doing so, he shows just how rich Kabbalah's psychological tradition is and how much it can offer to the corpus of modern psychological knowledge. Garb follows the gradual disappearance of the soul from modern philosophy while drawing attention to its continued persistence as a topic in literature and popular culture. He pays close attention to James Hillman's "archetypal psychology," using it to engage critically with the psychoanalytic tradition and reflect anew on the cultural and political implications of the return of the soul to contemporary psychology. Comparing Kabbalistic thought to adjacent developments in Catholic, Protestant, and other popular expressions of mysticism, Garb ultimately offers a thought-provoking argument for the continued relevance of religion to the study of psychology.

How to challenge an international order: Russian diplomatic practices in multilateral security organisations:

Abstract: Many policy and academic debates focus on the extent to which Russia is a revisionist power challenging the ‘liberal world order’. However, there is little agreement on the primary motives explaini...

Thinking about Method: A Conversation with Talal Asad

Abstract: In this interview, completed in November 2016, the anthropologist Talal Asad (b. 1933) reviews methodological and theoretical questions that continue to animate his work. The conversation is framed by his concept of tradition and touches on themes of temporality and sovereignty, failure and fragility, ethnographic conceits and forms of life.

Vision, subalternity, and religious imaginary in southern Italy:

Abstract: Vision and divine voice, however defined, are at the heart of religious experience. The meeting with the Other sustains new ways of life and grants deep transformations in subjectivity. After chron...