BUILDING WALLS: Psychogeography and the Study of Boundaries
Howard F. Stein

Psychogeography is the study of how human beings build walls--in order to protect the nation and shore up the self. Geographic space delineates inside from outside; who and what is to be included and who and what is to be excluded. Personal boundaries come to be co-extensive with the boundaries of the group. We shore up our vulnerable selves by “building walls” to defend from “penetration” by alien outsiders.

Howard Stein’s groundbreaking Developmental Time, Cultural Space profoundly illuminates the recent political situation in the United States; the “frenzy of border protection (Paul Kahn).”
A limited number of copies of the hardbound edition are available from Amazon. Please Order now.

Howard Stein has been called “one of the finest minds engaged in the study of culture in our time” (Howard Schwartz, Oakland University) and “One of the world’s most original thinkers in the human sciences.” (Robert Endleman, author of Psyche and Society).

A few hardbound copies are available through Amazon.

Click through here to order your copy now.

“The scope of psychogeography is the unconscious construction of the social and physical world. Men and women fashion the world out of the substance of their psyches from the experience of their bodies. They project psychic contents outward.”

“Fantasies about the body are transmuted into descriptions of one’s own group, and other groups—into shapes and features of the world. Projected outward, the fate of the body becomes the fate of the world.”

PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY is the study of the psychology and social construction of BOUNDARIES: How we delineate inside and outside; who is to be included and who excluded. How do personal boundaries come to be felt as co-extensive with the boundaries of one’s group?

“People seek secure boundaries,” Stein says, in order to “differentiate between us and them, inside and outside, good and evil.” Boundaries must be closed, and “anything which might threaten the perfection of greatness within must be excluded.”

Psychogeography is the study of how nations build walls in order to protect citizens from “demonized dangers from beyond the borders” (Daniel Brownstein).

Please order immediately to obtain your copy.

HOWARD F. STEIN is a psychological anthropologist and Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. 

Developmental Time, Cultural Space: Studies in Psychogeography

Howard F. Stein