Overview

What are we doing when taking psychoanalysis from the couch to the analysis of society, culture, and arts? How is it possible to do so? How is it possible to move from singular experiences to universal structures detected in culture and society? Could psychoanalysis applied to art works become more sensitive to their aesthetics form? Psychoanalysis is often disclaimed as non-scientific, since its main object – the unconscious – has no positive existence. This book, however, proposes psychoanalysis to be a “science of the signifier”. It takes as its object the signifier – the signifying part of the sign – insisting that it always says more (or less) than intended, because its very materiality carries unintended messages. By defining the object of psychoanalysis as the signifier, this volume argues that we can speak of psychoanalysis as a science, even if it is closer to semiotics than biology. Analysing the Cultural Unconscious builds on this idea by arguing that the analysis of the signifier is the way to understand not only the individual unconscious, but also the cultural one. Replacing a person’s monologue on the couch with ideology criticism or a piece of art, applied psychoanalysis allows us to analyse culture and the arts in a new way, uncovering the cultural unconscious.

Full Product Details

Author:   Lilian Munk Rösing (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) ,  Professor Henrik Jøker Bjerre (Aalborg University, Denmark) ,  Brian Benjamin Hansen (VIA University College, Denmark) ,  Kirsten Hyldgaard (Aarhus University, Denmark)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic
Weight:   0.349kg
ISBN:  

9781350262287

ISBN 10:   1350262285
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   29 July 2021
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

"Introduction Part I: Science and the Signifier I.1 “The Cunning of the Signifier”, Henrik Jøker Bjerre (Aalborg University, Denmark) I.2 “The Echo of the Signifier in the Body: On Drives Today”, Juliet Flower MacCannell (University of California, USA) I.3 “Secret in the Body – the Fantasy Structure of Genes and Brains”, Renata Salecl (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and Birkbeck College, UK) Part II: From Couch to Culture II.1 “Drives and Culture”, Mladen Dolar (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and European Graduate School, Switzerland) II.2 Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac and the Four Discourses, Kirsten Hyldgaard (Aarhus University, Denmark) II.3 “Courtly Capitalism”, Center for Wild Analysis II.4 “Is there a Way out of the Capitalist Discourse?”, René Rasmussen (University of Copenhagen) Part III: Application III.1 “Examples and Surplus-Meaning”, Brian Benjamin Hansen (VIA University College, Denmark) III.2 ""Literature as Philosophy of the Real: Ethics and Sexual Difference in Coetzee’s Disgrace"", Kari Jegerstedt (University of Bergen, Norway) III.3 “When I am Beside Myself”, Linus Nicolai Carlsen (University of Copenhagen) III.4 “Analysis Sounds Boring – Is there an Analytical Potential in Modern Electronic Music?”, Anders Ruby (Aarhus University, Denmark) Part IV: Materiality and the Signifier IV.1 “Lol V. Stein to the Letter”, Ida Nissen Bjerre (University of Copenhagen) IV.2 ""Lacan and the Archeology of the Subject"", Carin Franzén (Linköping University, Sweden) IV.3 “The Signifiers of Cherry Ripe – On the Trauma and Repetition of an Art-historical Motif”, Jakob Rosendal (The Women’s Museum, Denmark) (editor: Lilian Munk Rösing, University of Copenhagen) IV.4 “Colour of Flesh, Flesh of Colour”, Lilian Munk Rösing (University of Copenhagen)"

Reviews

The problem of applied psychoanalysis has historically been unsolvable. But now, the appearance of Analysing the Cultural Unconscious provides a whole new way of thinking about moving from a psychoanalysis focused on the individual to cultural psychoanalysis. Assembling a wide array of top psychoanalytic theorists, this collection opens up a previously unexplored path to thinking psychoanalytically about culture. * Todd McGowan, Professor, University of Vermont, United States * Tremendously smart, topical and diverse in its address, this collection really does 'work' the signifier as it promises. These superb essays remind one (not that it is possible to forget) that psychoanalysis is always speaking - out of turn, out of time, but never untimely. * Sigi Joettkandt, Senior Lecturer in English, University of New South Wales, Australia *

The problem of applied psychoanalysis has historically been unsolvable. But now, the appearance of Analysing the Cultural Unconscious provides a whole new way of thinking about moving from a psychoanalysis focused on the individual to cultural psychoanalysis. Assembling a wide array of top psychoanalytic theorists, this collection opens up a previously unexplored path to thinking psychoanalytically about culture. * Todd McGowan, Professor, University of Vermont, United States * Tremendously smart, topical and diverse in its address, this collection really does ‘work’ the signifier as it promises. These superb essays remind one (not that it is possible to forget) that psychoanalysis is always speaking – out of turn, out of time, but never untimely. * Sigi Jöttkandt, Senior Lecturer in English, University of New South Wales, Australia *

Author Information

Lilian Munk Rösing is Associate Professor at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen. She has published four books (three in Danish, one in English) and a large number of articles combining psychoanalysis with literary and cultural criticism. Latest publication: Pixar with Lacan: The Hysteric’s Guide to Animation (2016).

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