Castration Desire
Castration Desire

Author: Robinson Murphy

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2023-12-14

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Theorizes an alternative form of masculinity in global literature that is less egocentric and more sustainable, both in terms of gendered and environmental power dynamics. Contemporary novelists and filmmakers like Kazuo Ishiguro (Japanese-British), Emma Donoghue (Irish-Canadian), Michael Ondaatje (Sri Lankan-Canadian), Bong Joon-ho (South Korean) and J.M. Coetzee (South African-Australian) are emblematic of a transnational phenomenon that Robinson Murphy calls “castration desire.” That is, these artists present privileged characters who nonetheless pursue their own diminishment. In promulgating through their characters a less egocentric mode of thinking and acting, these artists offer a blueprint for engendering a more other-oriented global relationality. Murphy proposes that, in addition to being an ethical prerogative, castration desire's “less is more” model of relationality would make life livable where veritable suicide is our species' otherwise potential fate. “Castration desire” thus offers an antidote to rapacious extractivism, with the ambition of instilling a sustainable model for thinking and acting on an imminently eco-apocalyptic earth. In providing a fresh optic through which to read a diversity of text-types, Castration Desire helps define where literary criticism is now and where it is headed. Castration Desire additionally extends and develops a zeitgeist currently unfolding in critical theory. It brings Leo Bersani's concept “psychic utopia” together with Judith Butler's “radical egalitarianism,” but transports their shared critique of phallic individualization into the environmental humanities. In doing so, this book builds a new framework for how gender studies intersects with environmental studies.

Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages
Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages

Author: Larissa Tracy

Publisher: DS Brewer

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 184384351X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Essays exploring medieval castration, as reflected in archaeology, law, historical record, and literary motifs. Castration and castrati have always been facets of western culture, from myth and legend to law and theology, from eunuchs guarding harems to the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century castrati singers. Metaphoric castration pervadesa number of medieval literary genres, particularly the Old French fabliaux - exchanges of power predicated upon the exchange or absence of sexual desire signified by genitalia - but the plain, literal act of castration and its implications are often overlooked. This collection explores this often taboo subject and its implications for cultural mores and custom in Western Europe, seeking to demystify and demythologize castration. Its subjects includearchaeological studies of eunuchs; historical accounts of castration in trials of combat; the mutilation of political rivals in medieval Wales; Anglo-Saxon and Frisian legal and literary examples of castration as punishment; castration as comedy in the Old French fabliaux; the prohibition against genital mutilation in hagiography; and early-modern anxieties about punitive castration enacted on the Elizabethan stage. The introduction reflects on these topics in the context of arguably the most well-known victim of castration in the middle ages, Abelard. LARISSA TRACY is Associate Professor of Medieval Literature at Longwood University. Contributors: Larissa Tracy, Kathryn Reusch, Shaun Tougher, Jack Collins, Rolf H. Bremmer Jr, Jay Paul Gates, Charlene M. Eska, Mary A. Valante, Anthony Adams, Mary E. Leech, Jed Chandler, Ellen Lorraine Friedrich, Robert L.A. Clark, Karin Sellberg, LenaWånggren

Castration
Castration

Author: Gary Taylor

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9780415938815

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Racial Castration
Racial Castration

Author: David L. Eng

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2001-03-20

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0822381028

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Racial Castration, the first book to bring together the fields of Asian American studies and psychoanalytic theory, explores the role of sexuality in racial formation and the place of race in sexual identity. David L. Eng examines images—literary, visual, and filmic—that configure past as well as contemporary perceptions of Asian American men as emasculated, homosexualized, or queer. Eng juxtaposes theortical discussions of Freud, Lacan, and Fanon with critical readings of works by Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, Lonny Kaneko, David Henry Hwang, Louie Chu, David Wong Louie, Ang Lee, and R. Zamora Linmark. While situating these literary and cultural productions in relation to both psychoanalytic theory and historical events of particular significance for Asian Americans, Eng presents a sustained analysis of dreamwork and photography, the mirror stage and the primal scene, and fetishism and hysteria. In the process, he offers startlingly new interpretations of Asian American masculinity in its connections to immigration exclusion, the building of the transcontinental railroad, the wartime internment of Japanese Americans, multiculturalism, and the model minority myth. After demonstrating the many ways in which Asian American males are haunted and constrained by enduring domestic norms of sexuality and race, Eng analyzes the relationship between Asian American male subjectivity and the larger transnational Asian diaspora. Challenging more conventional understandings of diaspora as organized by race, he instead reconceptualizes it in terms of sexuality and queerness.

The Decision of Desire
The Decision of Desire

Author: Silvia Lippi

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2020-04-14

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 145296291X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A unique rereading of Lacan’s theory of desire and its link to masochism, joy, mysticism, death, and feminine jouissance Of all of Lacan’s reconceptualizations of Freudian psychoanalytic discourse, the most misunderstood are those concerning human beings’ relation to the unconscious play of desire and the neurosis stemming from their attachment to the phallic function. An interpretive tour de force that engages works by surrealists such as André Breton, canonical writers like William Faulkner and James Joyce, and the philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas, and Baruch Spinoza, The Decision of Desire is groundbreaking in its proposal that each of us can seek out and reimagine our relation to the infinite aporias of desire and thereby detach from its destructive, repetitive forms in favor of joy and affirmation. Providing insight to the lay reader of psychoanalytic theory as much as to practicing psychoanalysts, The Decision of Desire is a bold reengagement with the legacy of the notion of desire within psychoanalysis and the quandary of how to assume responsibility for desires. For if desire is always already that of the Other and the unconscious, and also a decision that escapes our consciousness of ourselves, how can we assume an ethical relation to it that avoids the vicious circle of disappointment, neurosis, and destruction? Such is the decision of desire attempted within Silvia Lippi’s profound development of a contemporary psychoanalytic thought.

The Practice of Love
The Practice of Love

Author: Teresa De Lauretis

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 9780253316813

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"... a work that builds a substantial bridge between Freudian psychoanalysis and radical feminist thought, particularly on the subject of lesbianism.... Presenting a complex argument about an issue vital to the psychoanalytic endeavor as well as to feminist theory, The Practice of Love should stimulate a reconsideration of 'perversion' and the construction of sexual fantasy. The illumination of the fantasies that make lesbian desire distinctive will necessarily open up our understanding of all sexuality." --Jessica Benjamin, New York Times Book Review "Teresa de Lauretis has entwined three books into one: a critical history of psychoanalytic theories of female homosexuality; a bold study of how lesbians keep disappearing from popular culture, especially film; and an original speculation on the dynamics of lesbian desire." --Elisabeth Young-Bruehl "An important and original contribution not only to lesbian and gay studies, but also to psychoanalytic theory and film criticism. De Lauretis brings a unique and valuable perspective to issues of great importance today in all these areas." --Leo Bersani "De Lauretis's influential theory gets top marks from sapphic scholars who know best." --Out In an eccentric reading of Freud through Laplanche and the Lacanian and feminist revisions, Teresa de Lauretis delineates a model of "perverse" desire and a theory of lesbian sexuality. The Practice of Love discusses classic psychoanalytic narratives of female homosexuality, contemporary feminist writings on female sexuality, and the evolution of the original fantasies into cultural myths or public fantasies.

Seduction and Desire
Seduction and Desire

Author: Ilka Quindeau

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-03-08

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 0429918828

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Modern society has introduced many new relationships and family forms and the pluralisation of sexual lifestyles in the hundred years since Freud. This book provides a systematic account of the current state of theory, developing a gender-wide model of human sexuality and outlining the implications of this for psychotherapy practice. The author argues that the development of human sexuality follows no innate biological programs, but takes place in an interpersonal relationship, often established in the early parent-child relationship. Whereas the current psychoanalytic discourse emanates from a rather rigid division of gender relations emphasizing the differences between men and women, the author develops a gender-wide model of human sexuality in which the 'masculine' and 'feminine' are integrated and contribute to the full diversity of gender identities and sexual varieties. She points to structural similarities of hetero-and homosexuality and perversion and calls for a general human sexuality that is based less on differences between men and women than with each other.

Psychoanalysis and Literary Theory
Psychoanalysis and Literary Theory

Author: Mathew R. Martin

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-08-30

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 1000638359

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Psychoanalysis and Literary Theory introduces the key concepts, figures and movements of both psychoanalytic theory and the history of literary criticism and theory, engaging with Freud, Zizek, Plato, posthumanism, and beyond. Divided into two parts - concepts and movements – the structure of the book is clear and accessible. Each chapter builds upon the one before, allowing the reader to progress from little or no background in psychoanalysis, philosophy, or literary theory to the ability to engage actively with the relatively sophisticated ideas presented in later sections of the work. Mathew R. Martin consistently directs attention to the task of interpreting texts by illustrating abstract theoretical points with literary texts and at apposite moments provides brief readings of selected texts. This book will be essential reading for academics and students of psychoanalytic studies, literary criticism, and literary theory.

Palatable Poison
Palatable Poison

Author: Laura L. Doan

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 9780231118743

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Well of Loneliness was released in Britain in 1928 and was immediately controversial. This text gathers together classic essays on the book to provide an understanding of how views have changed.

Figures of Resistance
Figures of Resistance

Author: Teresa de Lauretis

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2010-10-01

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0252090969

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The changing face of feminist discourse as reflected by the career of one of its preeminent scholars Figures of Resistance brings together the unpublished lectures and little-seen essays of internationally renowned theorist Teresa de Lauretis, spanning over twenty years of her finest work. Thirty years after the height of feminist theory, this collection invites us to reflect on the history of feminism and take a hard look at where it stands today. Selected essays include "Sexual Indifference and Lesbian Representation," "The Lure of the Mannish Lesbian," "Eccentric Subjects," "Habit Changes," "The Intractability of Desire," and the unpublished article "Figures of Resistance." An introduction from feminist film scholar Patricia White provides an overview of the development of de Lauretis's thought and of feminist theory over past decades.