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Commodification of Organs As Objects of Desire

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Purloined Organs
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Abstract

Building on Marx and Freud, Lacan reflects on how commodities become objects of desire. The commodity becomes a fetish, a replacement of a partial object (the object of desire). This raises the question about what happens if organs themselves become commodities, procurable on the organ market, allegedly representing the one thing suffering subjects desperately need. Transplantation medicine emerges as a technological development with decisive ontological repercussions.

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References

  • Althusser, L., and E. Balibar. 1970. Lire le capital. Paris: Maspero.

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  • Freud, S. 1919/1947. Das Unheimliche. In Gesammelte Werke XII, 227–268. London: Imago.

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  • Lacan, J. 1968–1969/2006. Le Séminaire de Jacques Lacan XVI: D’un Autre à l’autre. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

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  • Marx, K. 1867/1979. Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Oekonomie 1: der produktionsprocess des Kapitals. Berlin: Dietz.

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Correspondence to H. A. E. Zwart .

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Zwart, H.A.E. (2019). Commodification of Organs As Objects of Desire. In: Purloined Organs. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05354-3_9

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