Robert Coles

In this book on shaping a meaningful and ethical life, the renowned, Pulitzer Prizewinning author explores how character, courage, and human and moral understanding can be fostered by reflecting on the lives of others, through stories. Based on Robert Coles legendary course at Harvard, this provocative book addresses such questions as, Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? It calls on us to become stronger and more aware, by reflecting on ourselves and others with the help of great literature and art. Dr. Coles shows how the work of writers, artists, and thinkers of the past two centuries can inspire our own reflections on the daily lives we lead. He offers a compelling call to venture outside of our own selves and lives and to listen, attentively and with growing humanity, to the way others get through life. Coles encourages us to examine our own character, kindness, and complexity by looking carefully at our perceptions of others, and by studying the wisdom of authors from Charles Dickens to Flannery OConnor, from James Agee to George Orwell, and many others. In this influential conversation about empathy and engagement, Coles inspires us to seek out deeper meaning in our lives, and guides us toward achieving greater clarity, strength, and richness of understanding, amid the moral, psychological, and social complexities of the modern world.

Child psychologist Robert Coles strays far from his familiar territory in this enlightening meditation on Bruce Springsteen's talent for reflecting the aspirations, hopes, and fears of his audience. In interviews with the singer's listening public--like a policeman who takes issue with the lyrics to "American Skin," about the 1999 New York police shooting of Amadou Diallo, and a schoolteacher who uses "The E Street Shuffle" as a classroom learning tool--Coles provides an intriguing glimpse of how Springsteen is perceived by the very Americans he's singing about. Positioning the musician among such literary figures as the physician and poet William Carlos Williams and the novelist Walker Percy (the latter a noted Springsteen admirer), Coles argues for his subject as a true populist figure in the tradition of Frank Sinatra--an artist whose songs accompany his listeners through their everyday lives, providing comfort and understanding, as well as a little much-needed perspective.

In this compelling book, Robert Coles, the celebrated Harvard professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, turns his attention to popular music legend Bruce Springsteen, and to the powerful impact Springsteens work has had both on the lives of his audience and on this countrys literary tradition. Coles places Springsteen in the pantheon of American artistsWalt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Dorothea Lange, and Walker Percy, among otherswho understood and were inspired by their traveling companions in time, the ordinary people of their eras.With wisdom and a unique personal perspective, Coles explores Springsteens words as contemporary American poetry, and offers firsthand accounts of how people interact with them: A trucker listens to Blinded by the Light during long, lonely nights and reminisces about his mother; a schoolteacher is astonished when a usually silent student offers a comparison between Nebraska and Conrads Heart of Darkness; a policeman responds to American Skin (41 Shots), reflecting on his own role in his family and community. As these people, and others, candidly discuss the meaning Springsteens words have in their lives, Coles listens and, with the special insight and compassion that are the trademarks of his art, sheds new light on The Boss, removing the legendary American rock musician from fan-filled stadiums and placing the poet in a greater social, cultural, and philosophical context. Coles sees Springsteen as a representative of a uniquely American documentary traditionas a sing-ing and traveling poet who does not simply embody the culture of which he is a part but fully engages it, interacting with its people and creating a conversation that has helped to shape a distinct way of looking at, and living, American life today.From the Hardcover edition.

Durante tres décadas Robert Coles ha seguido el consejo de Eliot. Ha estudiado y reflexionado entorno a la figura de Simone Weil- como escritora, crítica social, radical y mística- y sobre los enigmas de su extraña y corta vida (1909-1943). En este significativo retrato, Coles cuenta primero la historia de Simone Weil desde sus dias como brillante estudiante de filosofia en la Ecole Normale Superieure, hasta su controvertida etapa como profesora, su labor en fabricas, granjas y sindicatos, su conmovedora experiencia en el frente durante la Guerra Civil española, sus revelaciones misticas, sus colaboraciones con el Movimiento Libre Frances en Londres y, finalmente, su muerte a los treinta y cuatro años como consecuencia de su inanicion voluntaria y una tuberculosis no tratada. Una vez expuestos los acontecimientos de esta 'moderna peregrinacion', el Dr. Coles retoma, uno por uno, los principales interrogantes y obsesiones de Simone Weil: el hambre- como simbolo y realidad fatal; su actitud conflictiva frente al Judaismo y la Iglesia Catolica; su brillante critica social; su politica radical y su anhelo de gracia. Simone Weil, considerada por Adrienne Rich como 'uno de los recursos mas olvidados de nuestro siglo', llamada 'loca' por DeGaulle y a la que Flannery O'Connor veia como 'un misterio que deberia hacernos a todos mas humildes' sigue fascinando cada vez a mas personas inteligentes en todo el mundo. Robert Coles es profesor de Psiquiatria y humanidades medicas en la Facultad de Medicina de Harvard y Psiquiatra investigador de los Servicios de Salud de esta misma universidad. Entre sus muchas obras destaca la serie de cinco volumenes Children of Crisis , por la que obtuvo el premio Pulitzer.

Robert Coles, galardonado con el Premio Pulitzer, nos muestra en esta fascinante obra la diferencia entre el coeficiente intelectual y la inteligencia moral, y expone cómo puede enseñarse a la persona joven a ser "moralmente inteligente", el aprendizaje de la empatía, el respeto de uno mismo y de los demás. La creación de un Yo fuerte y generoso durante las dos primeras décadas de la vida pasa a ser el objetivo fundamental de la educación moral. En el libro se abordan también los problemas más característicos de la adolescencia: cómo afrontar el alcohol, las drogas, el sexo y otros dilemas morales.