Introduction: The Bonds of Love at 25

Abstract

In this brief introduction to the collection of essays that follows, I point to what in my mind are some of the most pertinent and powerful aspects of Jessica Benjamin's The Bonds of Love (1988), the author and book to whom this collection is dedicated. I tell of my first encounter with Jessica Benjamin and the impact the encounter had on me. I comment briefly on the book's place in contemporary psychoanalysis. Using Jessica Benjamin's own words, I highlight what in my mind is one of the book's greatest achievements: the reframing of the relations between knowledge and ethics in the light of a feminist critique of gender.