The Imaginary

About: The Imaginary is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4807 publications have been published within this topic receiving 87663 citations.

The Singularity of Being: Lacan and the Immortal Within

Abstract: Drawing on the work of Eric Santner, Slavoj Žižek, and Alenka Zupancic, this paper constructs a theory of subjective singularity from a Lacanian perspective. It argues that, unlike the "subject" (who comes into existence as a result of symbolic prohibition), or the "person" (who is aligned with the narcissistic conceits of the imaginary), the singular self emerges in response to a galvanizing directive arising from the real. This directive summons the individual to a "character" beyond his or her social and intersubjective investments. Consequently, singularity expresses the individual's nonnegotiable distinctiveness, eccentricity, or idiosyncrasy at the same time as it prevents both symbolic and imaginary closure. It opens to layers of rebelliousness that indicate that there are components of human life that exceed the realm of normative sociality. Indeed, insofar as singularity articulates something about the "undead" pulse of jouissance, it connects the individual to a paradoxical kind of immortality. This does not mean that the individual will not die, but rather that he or she is capable of "transcendent" experiences, such as heightened states of creativity, that (always momentarily) reach "outside" the parameters of mortal life. Such experiences allow the individual to feel "real" in ways that fend off symbolic abduction and psychic death.

Freud as Philosopher: Metapsychology After Lacan

Abstract: Preface Introduction: Returning to Metapsychology Recalling Freud's Witch Reading Lacan Chapter 1: Toward the Unthought Ground of Thought Monet's Pursuit of the "Enveloppe" The World of the Water Lilies The Class of 1890: Von Ehrenfels, James, Bergson, Nietzsche Gestalt Psychology and Phenomenology Heidegger: The Disposition of Being The Gestaltist Ontology of Merleau-Ponty The Unthought Ground of Thought in the Freudian Unconscious Chapter 2: Between the Image and the Word In the Shadow of the Image The Unconscious Play of the Signifier From Image to Sign The Ratman's Phantasy The Specimen Dream of Psychoanalysis The Dream's Solution Circulation in the Psychic Apparatus The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles Chapter 3: The Freudian Dialectic The Formative Power of the Image Imaginary Alienation Aggressivity and the Death Drive The Agency of the Death in the Signifier Language Acquisition and the Oedipus Complex Psychoanalysis and the Theory of Sacrifice Toward a Lacanian Theory of Sacrifice Chapter 4: The Freudian Thing A Love Triangle The Thing About the Other Thing or No-thing Speaking of the Thing Freud avec Jakobson Chapter 5: Figurations of the Objet a The Object-Cause of Desire "You don't love me . . . you don't give a shit" Between the Look and the Gaze Why One and One Make Four How the Real World Became a Phantasy Conclusion

Postanarchism and space: Revolutionary fantasies and autonomous zones

Abstract: In this paper, I call for a re-consideration of anarchism and its alternative ways of conceptualising spaces for radical politics. Here I apply a Lacanian analysis of the social imaginary to explore the utopian fantasies and desires that underpin social spaces, discourses and practices – including planning, and revolutionary politics. I will go on to develop – via Castoriadis and others – a distinctly post-anarchist conception of political space based around the project of autonomy and the re-situation of the political space outside the state. This will have direct consequences for an alternative conception of planning practice and theory.

The Subject of Elizabeth: Authority, Gender, and Representation

Abstract: As a woman wielding public authority, Elizabeth I embodied a paradox at the very center of sixteenth-century patriarchal English society. Louis Montrose's long-awaited book, "The Subject of Elizabeth", illuminates the ways in which the Queen and her subjects variously exploited or obfuscated this contradiction. Montrose offers a masterful account of the texts, pictures, and performances in which the Queen was represented to her people, to her court, to foreign powers, and to Elizabeth herself. Retrieving this "Elizabethan imaginary" in all its richness and fascination, Montrose presents a sweeping new account of Elizabethan political culture. Along the way, he explores the representation of Elizabeth within the traditions of Tudor dynastic portraiture; explains the symbolic manipulation of Elizabeth's body by both supporters and enemies of her regime; and considers how Elizabeth's advancing age provided new occasions for misogynistic subversions of her royal charisma. This book, the remarkable product of two decades of study by one of our most respected Renaissance scholars, will be welcomed by all historians, literary scholars, and art historians of the period.