Ruth Parkin-Gounelas is a Professor in the Department of English Literature and Culture at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Within the context of shifting social bonds in global culture, this book engages debates on the left from a range of disciplines (political philosophy, psychoanalysis, social psychology, and media and cultural studies) in an attempt to configure new meanings of identity, affect, community, and collective action.

Introduction Ruth Parkin-Gounelas Part 1: Psychoanalysis and the Group 1. Brother Animal's Long Tail: Sigmund Freud, Victor Tausk and Intellectual Influence Mandy Merck 2. Mass Enjoyment and the Society of the Camp: The Revised Case of Dorian Gray Josiane Paccaud-Huguet 3. Interview with Ernesto Laclau Conducted by Ruth Parkin-Gounelas Part 2: What's in a Crowd? 4. Crowds, Agency and Passion: Reconsidering the Roots of the Social Bond Stephen Reicher 5. "A Swinish Multitude" versus "A Crowd of Golden Daffodils" Jina Politi 6. The Masses as a "Vanishing Mediator": Class and Politics in DuSan Kovacevic's The Professional Sean Homer Part 3: Global Networks and Mass Identifications 7. Globality, the Totalitarian Mass and National Belonging Effie Yiannopoulou 8. Geographies of Cultural Globalization and Cosmopolitanisms of the Future Joseph Michael Gratale 9. "Touching Everyone": Media Identifications, Imagined Communities and New Media Technologies in the Case of Madeleine McCann Nicola Rehling 10. Swarm Intelligence: Blogging and On-Line Subjectivities Holger Briel. Epilogue: Pluralities to Come Ruth Parkin-Gounelas