Lacan’s Cruelty: Perversion beyond Philosophy, Culture and Clinic (The Palgrave Lacan Series)

This collection, written by leading Lacanian psychoanalytic theorists and practitioners, is a unique exploration of the novel aspects of perversion from the perspective of cruelty―a psychoanalytic study that has never been sufficiently undertaken in an English-speaking world. Instead of reducing the notion of perversion to cultural representations, a historical discourse or a clinical diagnosis, the authors in this collection draw on Freud, Kant, Hegel, Marquis de Sade, Derrida, Deleuze and Žižek to untie the knot of “psychic cruelty” intrinsic to perversion and therefore “de-sexualize” perverted acts. They do so by theorizing perversion in psychoanalytic concepts of the Oedipus complex, the-Name-of-the-Father and jouissance, and furthermore in the perspective of the clinics of neurosis and psychosis, in dialogue with a clinical praxis, philosophy and literature. Acknowledgments Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures 1: Introduction: Psychoanalysis in the Bedroom Bibliography 2: Cruelfictions of Psychoanalysis: Freud, Derrida, Mignotte Psychoanalysis, the Death Penalty and Cruelty Is There a Future for Blood?15 The Cruel Foundation Myth: Prometheus Kafka’s Solution Bibliography 3: Intimate Cruelties: Perversions, Sexuality and the Human Animal Lacanian Perversions: Between the Mother and the Father Dog-Fantasy, Cruelty and a Version of the Father: Reading Sandipan Bibliography 4: On the Right to Jouissance Bibliography 5: A Perverse Fascination for Death and Jouissance: Bataille, Lacan and the Anti-social Turn in Queer Theory Bataille’s Queerness and the Death Drive Bataille with Lacan: The Paradox of Jouissance The Sinthome and the Meaninglessness of Jouissance Conclusion: The Sinthome, a Heresy of the Good Kind Bibliography 6: Perversion After Freud: From the Cruel Father to the Joycean Clinic The Voice of the Superego: Desexualization of the Oedipal Desire Psychic Cruelty and Seduction: The Prehistoric Father The Law and Jouissance: Kant as the Truth of Sade Universal Delusion and Non-sexual Rapport: “Ordinary” Perversion The Joycean Clinic: Writing as a Perverse Symptom Bibliography 7: The Anxiety at the Heart of Perverse Experience: A Clinical Perspective Serge André, “Dany, or the Choice of Masochism” The Pact with the Mother The Scenario The Contract The Fetish The Absent Witness, Addressee of the Demonstration From the Suffocation of the Subject to the Advent of True Speech The Termination of the Analysis and the Turn to Writing Bibliography 8: “The Pornography of His Eyes”: A Vignette of Perversion Uses of the Vignette South West London, 2012 Retroactive Diagnosis A Perverse Choice of Partner Phallic Eyes, or The Exhibitionism of the Gaze Which Other? Whose Jouissance? God’s Anxiety Conclusion Bibliography 9: Neoliberalism and Liminality: Perverse Cruelties in the Age of the Capitalist Discourse Neoliberalism and the Capitalist Discourse Capitalist Discourse and Surplus-Jouissance Liminal Beings in an Age of Commanded Jouissance Conclusion Bibliography Index "This collection, written by leading Lacanian psychoanalytic theorists and practitioners, is a unique exploration of the novel aspects of perversion from the perspective of crueltya psychoanalytic study that has never been sufficiently undertaken in an English-speaking world. Instead of reducing the notion of perversion to cultural representations, a historical discourse or a clinical diagnosis, the authors in this collection draw on Freud, Kant, Hegel, Marquis de Sade, Derrida, Deleuze and Zizek to untie the knot of "psychic cruelty" intrinsic to perversion and therefore "de-sexualize" perverted acts. They do so by theorizing perversion in psychoanalytic concepts of the Oedipus complex, the-Name-of-the-Father and jouissance, and furthermore in the perspective of the clinics of neurosis and psychosis, in dialogue with a clinical praxis, philosophy and literature."-Back cover