The Inkblots
Autor Damion Searlsen Limba Engleză Hardback – 21 feb 2017
In 1917, working alone in a remote Swiss asylum, psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devised an experiment to probe the human mind. For years he had grappled with the theories of Freud and Jung while also absorbing the aesthetic of a new generation of modern artists. He had come to believe that who we are is less a matter of what we say, as Freud thought, than what we see.
Rorschach himself was a visual artist, and his test, a set of ten carefully designed inkblots, quickly made its way to America, where it took on a life of its own. Co-opted by the military after Pearl Harbor, it was a fixture at the Nuremberg trials and in the jungles of Vietnam. It became an advertising staple, a cliche in Hollywood and journalism, and an inspiration to everyone from Andy Warhol to Jay-Z. The test was also given to millions of defendants, job applicants, parents in custody battles, workers applying for jobs, and people suffering from mental illness or simply trying to understand themselves better. And it is still used today.
Damion Searls draws on unpublished letters and diaries, and a cache of previously unknown interviews with Rorschach s family, friends, and colleagues, to tell the unlikely story of the test s creation, its controversial reinvention, and its remarkable endurance and what it all reveals about the power of perception. Elegant and original, The Inkblots shines a light on the twentieth century s most visionary synthesis of art and science."
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780804136549
ISBN-10: 0804136548
Pagini: 414
Dimensiuni: 167 x 244 x 38 mm
Greutate: 0.68 kg
Editura: Random House
Colecția Crown Books
ISBN-10: 0804136548
Pagini: 414
Dimensiuni: 167 x 244 x 38 mm
Greutate: 0.68 kg
Editura: Random House
Colecția Crown Books
Notă biografică
Damion Searls received the 2012 Biography Fellowship from the Leon Levy Center at CUNY to write this book. He also received a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship. Damion has published nonfiction and is also a well-known translator from the French and German. His translation of Hans Keilson's Comedy in a Minor Key was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard with a degree in German, and has a PhD from Berkeley.
Recenzii
'Searls restores much of [the inkblot test's] potency in this rich and resonant book . . . Even in the age of alternative facts, there are still right answers, and wrong ones, and the inkblots still ring true’
‘A marvelous book about how one man and his enigmatic test came to shape our collective imagination. The Rorschach test is a great subject and The Inkblots is worthy of it: beguiling, fascinating, and full of new discoveries every time you look’
‘It seems incredible that no one before Damion Searls has ever written a biography of Rorschach… His early death may have deterred other would-be biographers, but Searls sails past it with style: the second half of his book traces the fortunes of Rorschach’s famous test, which became a household word in America after World War II, when the U.S. Army used it on draftees. Searls uses this unlikely-seeming artifact to illuminate two histories, one scientific, the other cultural, both full of surprises’
‘This excellent book begins as a biography and becomes, when [Rorschach] suddenly dies of a ruptured appendix at the age of thirty-seven, a cultural history of his creation’
‘Searls has painstakingly woven together both the enduring strengths of Rorschach’s iconic test and the controversies and convolutions surrounding it, all while capturing Rorschach’s distinctive design, to which the inkblots owe their longevity. The book’s engaging narrative, born of both detailed research and artistic sentimentality, is a fitting tribute to its enigmatic subject.’
‘Damion Searls’s book is a refreshing biography of Hermann Rorschach and a cultural history of his famous inkblot test. Rorschach died almost a century ago and this book reveals fascinating details about his life and the enduring controversies regarding the meaning of his inkblot test.’
‘What an amazing book. The Rorschach inkblot is like the enigmatic corpse in a mystery novel, and Damion Searls is the passionate and encyclopedic detective who unpacks the intricate and twisted story of how it came to be. By the end, one feels that Rorschach and his test are the key to understanding the whole 20th century. Searls is a wonderful writer: funny, compassionate, and unfailingly attentive to all the magical coincidences (or are they?) and twists of human history.’
‘A richly detailed, sensitive biography of Rorschach’s short life and long afterlife.’
‘Very little has previously been known about Rorschach’s private life; Searls now fills in many blanks, drawing a more rounded portrait of the Swiss psychiatrist … Rorschach’s genius is apparent, and his famous inkblots ever fascinating.’
‘A deft, surprising, and illuminating portrait of Hermann Rorschach, and a compelling case that his improbable inkblot experiment should earn him a place in the pantheon of psychology.’
‘Who knew? Most of the founding lions of psychoanalysis often seem as petty and infantile as they were (at times) brilliant and inspired. But to hear Damion Searls tell it in this absorbing new biography, Hermann Rorschach was a different sort altogether: humane, empathic, loving, deeply sane, and possessed of a true artist’s soul. Searls’s account of Rorschach’s afterlife is no less fascinating, as every culture that encountered his test seemed to project its own values onto it. In the end, true to Rorschach, Searls locates the heart of being human at the endlessly unfurling intersection of vision and self-awareness.’
‘The life of this fascinating man is a much-needed contribution to the history of psychoanalysis. This is sure to become the standard reference for both Hermann Rorschach’s life and times and the history of the inkblot test from his time to ours.’
‘In this accessible biography of Rorschach, Damion Searls shows us the young psychologist, who died at a tragically early age, making his way among the feuding early 20th century thinkers in psychology, including Freud and Jung. Vividly sketched with many new sources, The Inkblots reveals Rorschach to be a fascinating character: part artist, part clinician. A marvelous portrait.’
‘The Inkblots is three books in one: an engaging biography of Hermann Rorschach; a vivid and meticulously researched history of his eponymous inkblots; and a fascinating exploration of the psychology of perception. This is a book that challenges us to consider the relationship between what we see and who we are.’
‘A marvelous book about how one man and his enigmatic test came to shape our collective imagination. The Rorschach test is a great subject and The Inkblots is worthy of it: beguiling, fascinating, and full of new discoveries every time you look’
‘It seems incredible that no one before Damion Searls has ever written a biography of Rorschach… His early death may have deterred other would-be biographers, but Searls sails past it with style: the second half of his book traces the fortunes of Rorschach’s famous test, which became a household word in America after World War II, when the U.S. Army used it on draftees. Searls uses this unlikely-seeming artifact to illuminate two histories, one scientific, the other cultural, both full of surprises’
‘This excellent book begins as a biography and becomes, when [Rorschach] suddenly dies of a ruptured appendix at the age of thirty-seven, a cultural history of his creation’
‘Searls has painstakingly woven together both the enduring strengths of Rorschach’s iconic test and the controversies and convolutions surrounding it, all while capturing Rorschach’s distinctive design, to which the inkblots owe their longevity. The book’s engaging narrative, born of both detailed research and artistic sentimentality, is a fitting tribute to its enigmatic subject.’
‘Damion Searls’s book is a refreshing biography of Hermann Rorschach and a cultural history of his famous inkblot test. Rorschach died almost a century ago and this book reveals fascinating details about his life and the enduring controversies regarding the meaning of his inkblot test.’
‘What an amazing book. The Rorschach inkblot is like the enigmatic corpse in a mystery novel, and Damion Searls is the passionate and encyclopedic detective who unpacks the intricate and twisted story of how it came to be. By the end, one feels that Rorschach and his test are the key to understanding the whole 20th century. Searls is a wonderful writer: funny, compassionate, and unfailingly attentive to all the magical coincidences (or are they?) and twists of human history.’
‘A richly detailed, sensitive biography of Rorschach’s short life and long afterlife.’
‘Very little has previously been known about Rorschach’s private life; Searls now fills in many blanks, drawing a more rounded portrait of the Swiss psychiatrist … Rorschach’s genius is apparent, and his famous inkblots ever fascinating.’
‘A deft, surprising, and illuminating portrait of Hermann Rorschach, and a compelling case that his improbable inkblot experiment should earn him a place in the pantheon of psychology.’
‘Who knew? Most of the founding lions of psychoanalysis often seem as petty and infantile as they were (at times) brilliant and inspired. But to hear Damion Searls tell it in this absorbing new biography, Hermann Rorschach was a different sort altogether: humane, empathic, loving, deeply sane, and possessed of a true artist’s soul. Searls’s account of Rorschach’s afterlife is no less fascinating, as every culture that encountered his test seemed to project its own values onto it. In the end, true to Rorschach, Searls locates the heart of being human at the endlessly unfurling intersection of vision and self-awareness.’
‘The life of this fascinating man is a much-needed contribution to the history of psychoanalysis. This is sure to become the standard reference for both Hermann Rorschach’s life and times and the history of the inkblot test from his time to ours.’
‘In this accessible biography of Rorschach, Damion Searls shows us the young psychologist, who died at a tragically early age, making his way among the feuding early 20th century thinkers in psychology, including Freud and Jung. Vividly sketched with many new sources, The Inkblots reveals Rorschach to be a fascinating character: part artist, part clinician. A marvelous portrait.’
‘The Inkblots is three books in one: an engaging biography of Hermann Rorschach; a vivid and meticulously researched history of his eponymous inkblots; and a fascinating exploration of the psychology of perception. This is a book that challenges us to consider the relationship between what we see and who we are.’
Descriere
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Despite decades of controversy, the Rorschach test is still widely used and continues to pervade popular culture. Shouldn't we have written off this rather embarrassing vestige of early twentieth-century pseudoscience long ago, along with hypnosis, orgone boxes, and truth serum? In fact, the Rorschach test remains because it works-much better than Rorschach himself ever imagined. How and why that's the case cuts to the very heart of human personality.
In The Inkblot Experiment, author Damion Searls explores this phenomenon. He tells the story of Hermann Rorschach, his ingenious experiment, and his pioneering insight into personality before going on to discuss the long and unexpected afterlife the Rorschach test has enjoyed in the last century. Searls pays tribute to this man's fascinating and too brief life but also considers the cultural history of his famous test, how it evolved and grew out of a period of intense ferment in psychology and psychoanalysis (Freud was a near contemporary, Jung a colleague) and how both the cultural and the clinical meaning and uses of the test have changed over time.This is a story that begins in a snow-covered asylum in Switzerland and brings us, a hundred years later, to the crossroads of mental illness, healthcare, science, law, and art.