View the Table of Contents.
Read the Introduction.

"Lively tales of girls who long for the lives of male scholars, and rebels who visit strip clubs, smoke pot, and dream of high-powered careers."--"Books to Watch out For"

"Stephanie Levine's book is full of surprises."--"Midstream"

"A fascinating read for anyone interested in youth culture."
--"Youth Today"

"In an era seemingly plagued with sex, anorexia and depression among our nation's girls, a page from "Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers" is a refreshing peek into the possibilities for growth, strength and self."--"The Jewish New Weekly of Northern California"

"At all times, Levine's genuine respect for the community shines through. The book is eminently readable and undoubtedly fascinating."--"Jewish Chronicle"

"A vivid portrayal of the Lubavitcher community."
--" Library Journal"

"[Levine's] empathy is palpable in each one of the profiles. Levine has a natural, artful style and writes with a lively and keen vision."
--"Moment magazine"

"Her findings are fascinating."
--"Jewish Telegraph"

"Levine treats all her subjects with respect. At the core, this is a popularly written academic study."
-- "KLIATT"

"Levine vividly portrays these girls, their hopes and their struggles, as well as her own feelings towards Orthodoxy and the Lubavitch way of life."
--"JOFA Book Corner"

"Levine's portraits provide a cross-section of the very human faces of these ultra-religious girls."
--"New Jersey Times"

"Stephanie Wellen Levine's suggestions are obviously heartfelt and perhaps sensible....at turns charming and scandalous."
--"The Jerusalem Report"

"Levine takes readersinto an unfamiliar world of girls who were raised in the Lubavitcher sect of Hasidim in Crown Heights, Brooklyn...One intriguing paradox she explores is how these girls created distinct personalities while living in a very closed society."
--"Choice"

"Levine does a splendid job of presenting how the girls cope, and paints vivid pictures of Shabbat around their family tables."
--" The Jerusalem Post Literary Quarterly"

"Stephanie Wellen Levine has written an intriguing and joyous account of the lives of young adult Hasidic women."
--" Jewish Book World"

"Eminently readable."
--" Jewish Journal Book Review"

"Levine steps back and lets the girls speak for themselves; their voices, layered with determination, yearning, confusion and wonder, emerge clearly."
--" Na'amat Woman Book Reviews"

"This absorbing ethnography acts as one subculture's corrective to "Reviving Ophelia," in that it offers a refreshing portrait of adolescent girls who are far from insecure."--"Publishers Weekly" (starred review)

From the ardently religious young woman who longs for the life of a male scholar to the young rebel who visits a strip club, smokes pot, and agonizes over her loss of faith to the proud Lubavitcher with a desire for a high-powered career, Stephanie Wellen Levine provides a rare glimpse into the inner worlds and daily lives of these Hasidic girls.

Lubavitcher Hasidim are famous for their efforts to inspire secular Jews to become more observant and for their messianic fervor. Strict followers of Orthodox Judaism, they maintain sharp gender-role distinctions.

Levine spent a year living in the Lubavitch community of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, participating in the rhythms of Hasidic girlhood. Drawing on many intimate hours among Hasidim and over 30 in-depth interviews, Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers offers rich portraits of individual Hasidic young women and how they deal with the conflicts between the regimented society in which they live and the pull of mainstream American life.

This superbly crafted book offers intimate stories from Hasidic teenagers' lives, providing an intriguing twist to a universal theme: the struggle to grow up and define who we are within the context of culture, family, and life-driving beliefs.

Adolescent girls'special needs in the teen-age years are thoroughly examined in Women, Girls & Psychotherapy, a compelling book focusing on the vitality of resistance in young girls. Drawing on studies of women's and girls'development, clinical work with girls and women, and their personal experiences, the voices of adolescent girls are used to reframe and greater understand their resistance against debilitating conventions of feminine behavior. As adolescent girls are often overlooked in feminist books in psychotherapy, this is an important volume as it looks positively at resistance, both as a political strategy and a health-sustaining process.The chapters cover such diverse topics as reconceptualizations of women's and girls'psychological development and the psychotherapy relationship; adolescent female sexuality; new approaches to psychological problems commonly seen in girls and women; female adolescent health; and diverse perspectives and experiences of growing up female. The voices of young women are increasingly important in the exploration of the field of psychotherapy and among the voices included are those from African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and lesbians. An enlightening look at resistance in females in the growing up years, this volume provides valuable insight on their experiences. The work of many researchers,therapists, and educators with diverse backgrounds, Women, Girls & Psychotherapy is an informative book on distinct psychological issues facing young females.

On the way to womanhood, what does a girl give up? For five years, Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan, asking this question, listened to one hundred girls who were negotiating the rough terrain of adolescence. This book invites us to listen, too, and to hear in these girls' voices what is rarely spoken, often ignored, and generally misunderstood: how the passage out of girlhood is a journey into silence, disconnection, and dissembling, a troubled crossing that our culture has plotted with dead ends and detours. In the course of their research, Brown and Gilligan developed a Listener's Guide - a method of following the pathways of girls' thoughts and feelings, of distinguishing what girls are saying by the way they say it. We witness the struggle girls undergo as they enter adolescence only to find that what they feel and think and know can no longer be said directly. We see them at a cultural impasse, and listen as they make the painful, necessary adjustments, outspokenness giving way to circumspection, self-knowledge to uncertainty, authority to compliance. These changes mark the edge of adolescence as a watershed in women's psychological development, a time of wrenching disjunctions between body and psyche, voice and desire, self and relationship. Brown and Gilligan open their method to us and share their discoveries as they encourage girls at different ages to speak about themselves in conversation with women. They follow some of these girls over time, listening to changes in their distinct voices from one year to the next, addressing their successes and failures as they confront one barrier after another. This groundbreaking work offers major new insights into girls' development and women's psychology. But perhaps more importantly, it provides women with the means of meeting girls at the critical crossroads of adolescence, of harkening to the voices of girlhood and sustaining their sell-affirming notes.

Carol Gilligan’s landmark book In a Different Voice – the “little book that started a revolution� – brought women’s voices to the fore in work on the self and moral development, enabling women to be heard in their own right, and with their own integrity, for the first time.  Forty years later, Gilligan returns to the subject matter of her classic book, re-examining its central arguments and concerns from the vantage point of the present. Thanks to the work that she and others have done in recent decades, it is now possible to clarify and articulate what couldn’t quite be seen or said at the time of the original publication: that the “different voice� (of care ethics), although initially heard as a “feminine� voice, is in fact a human voice; that the voice it differs from is a patriarchal voice (bound to gender binaries and hierarchies); and that where patriarchy is in force or enforced, the human voice is a voice of resistance, and care ethics is an ethics of liberation. While gender is central to the story Gilligan tells, this is not a story about gender: it is a human story.  With this clarification, it becomes evident why In a Different Voice continues to resonate strongly with people’s experience and, perhaps more crucially, why the different voice is a voice for the 21st century.

Adolescent girls'special needs in the teen-age years are thoroughly examined in Women, Girls & Psychotherapy, a compelling book focusing on the vitality of resistance in young girls. Drawing on studies of women's and girls'development, clinical work with girls and women, and their personal experiences, the voices of adolescent girls are used to reframe and greater understand their resistance against debilitating conventions of feminine behavior. As adolescent girls are often overlooked in feminist books in psychotherapy, this is an important volume as it looks positively at resistance, both as a political strategy and a health-sustaining process.The chapters cover such diverse topics as reconceptualizations of women's and girls'psychological development and the psychotherapy relationship; adolescent female sexuality; new approaches to psychological problems commonly seen in girls and women; female adolescent health; and diverse perspectives and experiences of growing up female. The voices of young women are increasingly important in the exploration of the field of psychotherapy and among the voices included are those from African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and lesbians. An enlightening look at resistance in females in the growing up years, this volume provides valuable insight on their experiences. The work of many researchers, therapists, and educators with diverse backgrounds, Women, Girls & Psychotherapy is an informative book on distinct psychological issues facing young females.

Carol Gilligan’s landmark book In a Different Voice – the “little book that started a revolution� – brought women’s voices to the fore in work on the self and moral development, enabling women to be heard in their own right, and with their own integrity, for the first time.  Forty years later, Gilligan returns to the subject matter of her classic book, re-examining its central arguments and concerns from the vantage point of the present. Thanks to the work that she and others have done in recent decades, it is now possible to clarify and articulate what couldn’t quite be seen or said at the time of the original publication: that the “different voice� (of care ethics), although initially heard as a “feminine� voice, is in fact a human voice; that the voice it differs from is a patriarchal voice (bound to gender binaries and hierarchies); and that where patriarchy is in force or enforced, the human voice is a voice of resistance, and care ethics is an ethics of liberation. While gender is central to the story Gilligan tells, this is not a story about gender: it is a human story.  With this clarification, it becomes evident why In a Different Voice continues to resonate strongly with people’s experience and, perhaps more crucially, why the different voice is a voice for the 21st century.

This is a robust and relevant collection from a truly distinguished group of political theorists actively rethinking the promise and perils of democracy. The book is coherent in its focus on a common theme and aim: to advance and refine the political project of promoting democratic theory and practice. While the contributors are admirers of the promotion of various models of democracy they also express distinct approaches and concerns. Each builds on and expands the central theme of democracy and ultimately contends with potential limits of current configurations of democratic life. While to some extent they share common concerns they express considerable dissent and fruitful opposition that deepens and advances the debate. Contributors explore democracy from different perspectives: law and constitutionalism, globalization and development, public life and the arts, pluralism, democracy and education, and democratic listening and democratic participation. The contributions point towards new ways of living and thinking politically, new directions for contending with some of the more significant and seemingly intractable political problems, challenging conventional presuppositions about democracy by expanding the boundaries of what kinds of democracy may be possible. The book critiques liberal notions of democracy that forefront rational autonomy and a citizenship characterized by narrow self-interest, and critique naive claims that any infringement on the rights of the autonomous individual must invariably lead to authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Instead contributors suggest that the abandonment of the res publica in pursuit of private interests may well lead to arid politics or authoritarianism. Citizens are called upon to be more than just voters but rather define themselves by participation in a community beyond their self-interest-in fact arguing, like Aristotle, Rousseau, Jefferson and Arendt, that we are only human when we participate in something beyond ourselves, that we forge and preserve our political community by our commitment to and participation in robust debate and meaningful political action. Contributors are not only revolutionary scholars that challenge problematic streams of democratic theory and traditions, but are deeply involved in shaping the character and constitution of the American body politic and promoting debates about community and citizenship and justice around the world.

In the fall of 2016 those promoting patriarchal ideals saw their champion Donald Trump elected president of the United States and showed us how powerful patriarchy still is in American society and culture. Darkness Now Visible: Patriarchy's Resurgence and Feminist Resistance explains how patriarchy and its embrace of misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and violence are starkly visible and must be recognized and resisted. Carol Gilligan and David A. J. Richards offer a bold and original thesis: that gender is the linchpin that holds in place the structures of unjust oppression through the codes of masculinity and femininity that subvert the capacity to resist injustice. Feminism is not an issue of women only, or a battle of women versus men - it is the key ethical movement of our age.

Why is America again unjustly at war? Why is its politics distorted by wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage? Why is anti-Semitism still so powerfully resurgent? Such contradictions within democracies arise from a patriarchal psychology still alive in our personal and political lives in tension with the equal voice that is the basis of democracy. The book joins a psychological approach with a political-theoretical one that traces both this psychology (based on loss in intimate life) and resistance to it (based on the love of equals) to the Roman Republic and Empire and to three Latin masterpieces: Virgil s Aeneid, Apuleius s The Golden Ass, and Augustine s Confessions. Democratic resistance in religion, psychology, the arts, and politics rests on free voices challenging patriarchal restrictions on the love of equals. In addition to examining why we are at war, this book explains many other aspects of our present situation including why movements of ethical resistance are often accompanied by a freeing of sexuality and why we are witnessing an aggressive fundamentalism at home and abroad."

View the Table of Contents.
Read the Introduction.

"Lively tales of girls who long for the lives of male scholars, and rebels who visit strip clubs, smoke pot, and dream of high-powered careers."--"Books to Watch out For"

"Stephanie Levine's book is full of surprises."--"Midstream"

"A fascinating read for anyone interested in youth culture."
--"Youth Today"

"In an era seemingly plagued with sex, anorexia and depression among our nation's girls, a page from "Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers" is a refreshing peek into the possibilities for growth, strength and self."--"The Jewish New Weekly of Northern California"

"At all times, Levine's genuine respect for the community shines through. The book is eminently readable and undoubtedly fascinating."--"Jewish Chronicle"

"A vivid portrayal of the Lubavitcher community."
--" Library Journal"

"[Levine's] empathy is palpable in each one of the profiles. Levine has a natural, artful style and writes with a lively and keen vision."
--"Moment magazine"

"Her findings are fascinating."
--"Jewish Telegraph"

"Levine treats all her subjects with respect. At the core, this is a popularly written academic study."
-- "KLIATT"

"Levine vividly portrays these girls, their hopes and their struggles, as well as her own feelings towards Orthodoxy and the Lubavitch way of life."
--"JOFA Book Corner"

"Levine's portraits provide a cross-section of the very human faces of these ultra-religious girls."
--"New Jersey Times"

"Stephanie Wellen Levine's suggestions are obviously heartfelt and perhaps sensible....at turns charming and scandalous."
--"The Jerusalem Report"

"Levine takes readersinto an unfamiliar world of girls who were raised in the Lubavitcher sect of Hasidim in Crown Heights, Brooklyn...One intriguing paradox she explores is how these girls created distinct personalities while living in a very closed society."
--"Choice"

"Levine does a splendid job of presenting how the girls cope, and paints vivid pictures of Shabbat around their family tables."
--" The Jerusalem Post Literary Quarterly"

"Stephanie Wellen Levine has written an intriguing and joyous account of the lives of young adult Hasidic women."
--" Jewish Book World"

"Eminently readable."
--" Jewish Journal Book Review"

"Levine steps back and lets the girls speak for themselves; their voices, layered with determination, yearning, confusion and wonder, emerge clearly."
--" Na'amat Woman Book Reviews"

"This absorbing ethnography acts as one subculture's corrective to "Reviving Ophelia," in that it offers a refreshing portrait of adolescent girls who are far from insecure."--"Publishers Weekly" (starred review)

From the ardently religious young woman who longs for the life of a male scholar to the young rebel who visits a strip club, smokes pot, and agonizes over her loss of faith to the proud Lubavitcher with a desire for a high-powered career, Stephanie Wellen Levine provides a rare glimpse into the inner worlds and daily lives of these Hasidic girls.

Lubavitcher Hasidim are famous for their efforts to inspire secular Jews to become more observant and for their messianic fervor. Strict followers of Orthodox Judaism, they maintain sharp gender-role distinctions.

Levine spent a year living in the Lubavitch community of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, participating in the rhythms of Hasidic girlhood. Drawing on many intimate hours among Hasidim and over 30 in-depth interviews, Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers offers rich portraits of individual Hasidic young women and how they deal with the conflicts between the regimented society in which they live and the pull of mainstream American life.

This superbly crafted book offers intimate stories from Hasidic teenagers' lives, providing an intriguing twist to a universal theme: the struggle to grow up and define who we are within the context of culture, family, and life-driving beliefs.

Uncovers the roots and consequences of and offers solutions to the widespread alienation and disconnection that beset modern society Since the beginning of the 21st century, people have become increasingly disconnected from themselves, each other, and the world around them. A "crisis of connection" stemming from growing alienation, social isolation, and fragmentation characterizes modern society. The signs of this crisis of connection are everywhere, from decreasing levels of empathy and trust, to burgeoning cases of suicide, depression and loneliness. The astronomical rise in inequality around the world has contributed to the critical nature of this moment. To delve into the heart of the crisis, leading researchers and practitioners draw from the science of human connection to tell a five-part story about its roots, consequences, and solutions. In doing so, they reveal how we, in modern society, have been captive to a false story about who we are as human. This false narrative that takes individualism as a universal truth, has contributed to many of the problems that we currently face. The new story now emerging from across the human sciences underscores our social and emotional capacities and needs. The science also reveals the ways in which the privileging of the self over relationships and of individual success over the common good as well as the perpetuation of dehumanizing stereotypes have led to a crisis of connection that is now widespread. Finally, the practitioners in the volume present concrete solutions that show ways we can create a more just and humane world. In a time of social distancing and enforced isolation, it is more important than ever to find ways to bridge the gaps among individuals and communities. The Crisis of Connection illuminates concrete pathways to enhancing our awareness of our common humanity, and offers important steps to coming together in unity, even across distances.

In the fall of 2016 those promoting patriarchal ideals saw their champion Donald Trump elected president of the United States and showed us how powerful patriarchy still is in American society and culture. Darkness Now Visible: Patriarchy's Resurgence and Feminist Resistance explains how patriarchy and its embrace of misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and violence are starkly visible and must be recognized and resisted. Carol Gilligan and David A. J. Richards offer a bold and original thesis: that gender is the linchpin that holds in place the structures of unjust oppression through the codes of masculinity and femininity that subvert the capacity to resist injustice. Feminism is not an issue of women only, or a battle of women versus men - it is the key ethical movement of our age.

Uncovers the roots and consequences of and offers solutions to the widespread alienation and disconnection that beset modern society Since the beginning of the 21st century, people have become increasingly disconnected from themselves, each other, and the world around them. A "crisis of connection" stemming from growing alienation, social isolation, and fragmentation characterizes modern society. The signs of this crisis of connection are everywhere, from decreasing levels of empathy and trust, to burgeoning cases of suicide, depression and loneliness. The astronomical rise in inequality around the world has contributed to the critical nature of this moment. To delve into the heart of the crisis, leading researchers and practitioners draw from the science of human connection to tell a five-part story about its roots, consequences, and solutions. In doing so, they reveal how we, in modern society, have been captive to a false story about who we are as human. This false narrative that takes individualism as a universal truth, has contributed to many of the problems that we currently face. The new story now emerging from across the human sciences underscores our social and emotional capacities and needs. The science also reveals the ways in which the privileging of the self over relationships and of individual success over the common good as well as the perpetuation of dehumanizing stereotypes have led to a crisis of connection that is now widespread. Finally, the practitioners in the volume present concrete solutions that show ways we can create a more just and humane world. In a time of social distancing and enforced isolation, it is more important than ever to find ways to bridge the gaps among individuals and communities. The Crisis of Connection illuminates concrete pathways to enhancing our awareness of our common humanity, and offers important steps to coming together in unity, even across distances.

Why is America again unjustly at war? Why is its politics distorted by wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage? Why is anti-Semitism still so powerfully resurgent? Such contradictions within democracies arise from a patriarchal psychology still alive in our personal and political lives in tension with the equal voice that is the basis of democracy. The book joins a psychological approach with a political-theoretical one that traces both this psychology (based on loss in intimate life) and resistance to it (based on the love of equals) to the Roman Republic and Empire and to three Latin masterpieces: Virgil s Aeneid, Apuleius s The Golden Ass, and Augustine s Confessions. Democratic resistance in religion, psychology, the arts, and politics rests on free voices challenging patriarchal restrictions on the love of equals. In addition to examining why we are at war, this book explains many other aspects of our present situation including why movements of ethical resistance are often accompanied by a freeing of sexuality and why we are witnessing an aggressive fundamentalism at home and abroad.

Carol Gilligan, whose classic In a Different Voice revolutionized the study of human psychology, now offers a brilliant, provocative book about love. Why is love so often associated with tragedy, she asks. Why are our experiences of pleasure so often shadowed by loss? And can we change these patterns?

Gilligan observes children at play and adult couples in therapy and discovers that the roots of a more hopeful view of love are all around us. She finds evidence in new psychological research and traces a path leading from the myth of Psyche and Cupid through Shakespeare’s plays and Freud’s case histories, to Anne Frank’s diaries and contemporary novels. Groundbreaking and immensely readable, The Birth of Pleasure has powerful implications for the way we live and love.

More than any other psychologist, Carol Gilligan has helped us to hear girls' voices just when they seem to be blurring and fading or becoming disruptive during the passage into womanhood. When adolescent girls--once assured and resilient--silence or censor themselves to maintain relationships, they often become depressed, and develop eating disorders or other psychological problems. But when adolescent girls remain outspoken it is often difficult for others to stay in relationship with them, leading girls to be excluded or labeled as troublemakers. If this is true in an affluent suburban setting, where much of the groundbreaking research took place, what of girls from poor and working-class families, what of fading womanhood amid issues of class and race? And how might these issues affect the researchers themselves? In Between Voice and Silence Taylor, Gilligan, and Sullivan grapple with these questions. The result is a deeper and richer appreciation of girls' development and women's psychological health. In an urban public school, among girls from diverse cultural backgrounds--African American, Hispanic, Portuguese, and white--and poor and working-class families, the authors sought a key to the relationship between risk, resistance, and girls' psychological development and health. Specifically, they found cultural differences that affect girls' coming of age in this country. In Between Voice and Silence, the story of the study parallels another, that of African American, Hispanic, and white women who gathered to examine their own differences and to learn how to avoid perpetuating past divisions among women. Together, these two stories reveal an intergenerational struggle to develop relationships between and among women and to hold and respect difference.

Making Connections maps new territory in the field of psychology. The essays in this volume are "a series of exercises en route to a new psychology of adolescence and women...[and] part of a process that they also describe: of changing a tradition by including girls' voices, of listening to girls and asking again about the meaning of self, relationship, and morality-concepts central to any psychology of human development... Each essay originated with a question that arose or became clarified in the experience of the research. No attempt has been made to unify these essays or to arrive at a central thesis, beyond the common intention to listen for the ways in which girls orchestrate themes of connection and separation and concerns about care and justice in speaking about themselves, about their relationships, and about experiences of conflict... "When Women's Studies is joined with the study of girls development it becomes clearer why adolescence is a critical time in girls' lives-a time when girls are in danger of losing their voices and thus losing connection with others, and also a time when girls, gaining voice and knowledge, are in danger of knowing the unseen and speaking the unspoken and thus losing connection with what is commonly taken to be 'reality.' This crisis of connection in girls' lives at adolescence links the psychology of women with the most basic questions about the nature of relationships and the definition of reality. Girls questions about relationships and about reality, however, also tug at women's silences."