Abstract
This paper defends a Lacanian reading of political subjectivity apropos trauma against Catherine Malabou’s neurobiological critique of psychoanalysis. Malabou claims that our political era is increasingly characterised by the new wounded – post-traumatic subjects who are clinically and theoretically beyond psychoanalysis. Through a retelling of Sophocles’ Antigone using a novel taxonomy of Lacan’s concept of the act, a new type of Lacanian subject is revealed that refutes Malabou to ensure the continuing relevance of the psychoanalytic lens on contemporary politics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Badiou, A. (1988/2006) Being and Event. Translated by O. Feltham. London: Continuum.
Butler, R. (2014) The Žižek Dictionary. London: Routledge.
Dawkins, D. (2015) Death Drive. http://www.actforlibraries.org/death-drive/, accessed 4 October 2016.
Evans, D. (2006) An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge.
Fink, B. (1997) A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and Technique. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Freud, S. (1914/1957) On Narcissism: An Introduction. Standard Edition 14. London: Hogarth Press, pp. 73–102.
Glynos, J. (2000) Thinking the ethics of the political in the context of a postfoundational world: From an ethics of desire to an ethics of the drive. Theory & Event 4(4). https://muse.jhu.edu/article/32603, accessed 19 February 2017.
Grigg, R. (2008) Lacan, Language, and Philosophy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Hook, D. (2016) Of symbolic mortification and ‘undead life’: Slavoj Žižek on the death drive. Psychoanalysis and History 18(2): 221–256. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/pah.2016.0190.
Johnston, A. (2009) Badiou, Žižek, and Political Transformations. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Lacan, J. (1966–1967) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XIV: The Logic of Phantasy, 1966–1967. Translated by C. Gallagher. http://www.lacaninireland.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/14-Logic-of-Phantasy-Complete.pdf, accessed 17 June 2016.
Lacan, J. (1967–1968) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XV: The Psychoanalytic Act. Translated by C. Gallagher. http://www.tau.ac.il/~cohenron/ScanSeminar.pdf, accessed 12 June 2016.
Lacan, J. (1969) Summary of the Seminar of 1967–1968. http://users.rowan.edu/~kazarian/files/Seminar15A3.pdf, accessed 24 June 2016.
Lacan, J. (1973/1978) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Translated by A. Sheridan. London: W.W. Norton.
Lacan, J. (1978/1991) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book II: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954–1955. Translated by S. Tomaselli, with notes by John Forrester. New York: W.W. Norton.
Lacan, J. (1986/1992) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959–1960. Translated by D. Porter. London: W.W. Norton.
Lacan, J. (1990) Television. Translated by D. Hollier, R. Krauss and A. Michelson. New York: W.W. Norton.
Lacan, J. (1991/2007) The Other Side of Psychoanalysis: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XVII. Translated by R. Grigg. New York: W.W. Norton.
Lacan, J. (2004/2014) Anxiety: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book X, 1962–3. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
Lacan, J. (2005/2016) The Sinthome: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XXIII, 1975–1976. Translated by A.R. Price. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Malabou, C. (2012a) Ontology of the Accident. Translated by C. Shread. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Malabou, C. (2012b) The New Wounded. Translated by S. Miller. New York: Fordham University Press.
Malabou, C. (2013) Telemorphosis: Theory in the Era of Climate Change, Vol. 1. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/o/ohp/10539563.0001.001/1:12/–telemorphosis-theory-in-the-era-of-climate-change-vol-1?rgn=div1;view=fulltext, accessed 25 December 2016.
McGowan, T. (2010) Subject of the event, subject of the act: The difference between Badiou’s and Žižek’s systems of philosophy. Subjectivity 3(1): 7–30.
Melville, H. (1952) Selected Writings of Herman Melville. 1st ed. New York: Modern Library.
Neill, C. (2003) Without Ground: Lacanian Ethics and the Assumption of Democracy. PhD Thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University.
Neill, C. (2011) Lacanian Ethics and the Assumption of Subjectivity. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Parker, I. and Pavón Cuéllar, D. (2014) Lacan, Discourse, Event. 1st ed. Hove: Routledge.
Pluth, E. (2007) Signifiers and Acts. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Rothenberg, M. (2010) The Excessive Subject. 1st ed. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Rowan, A. (2016) The Psychoanalytic Act as Act and Orientation. Lacanian Compass. https://lacaniancompass.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/lce-02-182012.pdf, accessed 15 June 2016.
Ruti, M. (2012) Psychoanalytic Interventions: Singularity of Being: Lacan and the Immortal Within. New York: Fordham University Press.
Sophocles. (2011) Sophocles’ Antigone: A New Translation. Translated by D. J. Rayor. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Stavrakakis, Y. (2010) On acts, pure and impure. International Journal of Žižek Studies 4(2): pp. 1–28.
Stavrakakis, Y. (2011) The radical act: Towards a spatial critique. Planning Theory 10(4): 301–324.
The Usual Suspects. (1995) (dir. B. Singer) USA: MGM Studios.
Verhaeghe, P. (1999) Causation and destitution of a pre-ontological non-entity: On the Lacanian subject. In: D. Nobus (ed.) Key Concepts in Lacanian Psychoanalysis. 1st ed. New York: Other Press.
Žižek, S. (1998) From ‘passionate attachments’ to dis-identification. UMBR(a). http://www.umbrajournal.org/identityidentification.html, accessed 21 June 2016.
Žižek, S. (1999) The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology. London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2001a) Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the (Mis)use of a Notion. London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2001b) Enjoy Your Symptom! New York: Routledge.
Žižek, S. (2002) For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor. London: Verso.
Žižek, S. (2008) Descartes and the post-traumatic subject. Filozofski Vestnik 29(2): 9–29.
Žižek, S. (2009a) An answer to two questions. In: A. Johnston (ed.) Badiou, Žižek, and Political Transformations. Evanston, IL.: Northwestern University Press, pp. 174–230.
Žižek, S. (2009b) The Parallax View. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Žižek, S. (2011) Class struggle or postmodernism? Yes, please! In: J. Butler, E. Laclau and S. Žižek (eds.) Contingency, Hegemony, Universality. 1st ed. London: Verso, pp. 90–135.
Žižek, S. (2014) Event. London: Penguin.
