Subject Lessons: Hegel, Lacan, and the Future of Materialism (Diaeresis)

Responding to the ongoing “objectal turn” in contemporary humanities and social sciences, the essays in Subject Lessons present a sustained case for the continued importance— indeed, the indispensability—of the category of the subject for the future of materialist thought. Approaching matters through the frame of Hegel and Lacan, the contributors to this volume, including the editors, as well as Andrew Cole, Mladen Dolar, Nathan Gorelick, Adrian Johnston, Todd McGowan, Borna Radnik, Molly Anne Rothenberg, Kathryn Van Wert, and Alenka Zupancic—many of whom stand at the forefront of contemporary Hegel and Lacan scholarship—agree with neovitalist thinkers that material reality is ontologically incomplete, in a state of perpetual becoming, yet they maintain that this is the case not in spite of but, rather, because of the subject. Incorporating elements of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and literary and cultural studies, Subject Lessons contests the movement to dismiss the subject, arguing that there can be no truly robust materialism without accounting for the little piece of the Real that is the subject. Responding to the ongoing "objectal turn" in contemporary humanities and social sciences, the essays in Subject Lessons present a sustained case for the continued importance - indeed, the indispensability - of the category of the subject for the future of materialist thought. Approaching matters through the frame of Hegel and Lacan, the contributors to this volume, including the editors, as well as Andrew Cole, Mladen Dolar, Nathan Gorelick, Adrian Johnston, Todd McGowan, Borna Radnik, Molly Anne Rothenberg, Kathryn Van Wert, and Alenka Zupancic - many of whom stand at the forefront of contemporary Hegel and Lacan scholarship - agree with neovitalist thinkers that material reality is ontologically incomplete, in a state of perpetual becoming, yet they maintain that this is the case not in spite of but, rather, because of the subject. Incorporating elements of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and literary and cultural studies, Subject Lessons contests the movement to dismiss the subject, arguing that there can be no truly robust materialism without accounting for the little piece of the Real that is the subject Contents Introduction: Subject Matters 1. What's the Matter?: On Matter and Related Matters - Mladen Dolar 2. Subjectivity in Times of (New) Materialisms: Hegel and Conceptualization - Borna Radnik 3. Object after Subjects: Hegel's Broken Ontology - Todd McGowan 4. The Nature of Dialectical Materialism in Hegel and Marx - Andrew Cole 5. Intellectual Intuition and Intellectus Archetypus: Reflexivity from Kant to Hegel - Slavoj Žižek 6. Fear of Science: Transcendetal Materialism and Its Discontents - Adrian Johnston 7. Ontology and the Death Drive: Lacan and Deleuze - Alenka Zupančič 8. Why Sex Is Special: Psychoanalysis against New Materialism - Nathan Gorelick 9. Twisting "Flat Ontology": Harman's "Allure" and Lacan's Extimate Cause - Molly Rothenberg 10. Becoming and the Challenge of Ontological Incompleteness: Virginia Woolf avec Lacan contra Deleuze - Kathryn Van Wert 11. From Sublimity to Sublimation: Hegel, Lacan, Melville - Russell Sbriglia Contributors Index Responding to the ongoing "objectal turn" throughout contemporary humanities and social sciences, the eleven essays in Subject Lessons present a sustained case for the continued importance-indeed, the indispensability-of the category of the subject for the future of materialist thought. "This collection of eleven philosophical essays addresses current trends in materialist philosophy dealing with subject-object relations, amounting to a polemical corrective that insists on the organizing role of the subject within materialist thought"-- Provided by publisher