Anti-Electra: The Radical Totem of the Girl PDF
Preview Anti-Electra: The Radical Totem of the Girl
Anti- Electra a univocal book Drew Burk, Consulting Editor Univocal Publishing was founded by Jason Wagner and Drew Burk as an independent publishing house specializing in artisanal edi- tions and translations of texts spanning the areas of cultural theory, media archaeology, continental philosophy, aesthetics, anthropol- ogy, and more. In May 2017, Univocal ceased operations as an in- dependent publishing house and became a series with its publish- ing partner the University of Minnesota Press. Univocal authors include: Miguel Abensour Sylvère Lotringer Judith Balso Jean Malaurie Jean Baudrillard Michael Marder Philippe Beck Serge Margel Simon Critchley Quentin Meillassoux Fernand Deligny Friedrich Nietzsche Jacques Derrida Peter Pál Pelbart Vinciane Despret Jacques Rancière Georges Didi- Huberman Lionel Ruffel Jean Epstein Michel Serres Vilém Flusser Gilbert Simondon Barbara Glowczewski Étienne Souriau Évelyne Grossman Isabelle Stengers Félix Guattari Eugene Thacker David Lapoujade Elisabeth von Samsonow François Laruelle Siegfried Zielinski David Link A N T I The Radical Totem of the Girl E L EC T R A Elisabeth von Samsonow Translated by Anita Fricek and Stephen Zepke University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance provided for the publication of this book by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. The University of Minnesota Press acknowledges the contribution of Jason Wagner, Univocal’s publisher, in making this volume possible. Originally published in German as Anti- Elektra: Totemismus und Schizogamie, copyright by diaphanes, Zürich- Berlin 2007. Copyright 2019 by Elisabeth von Samsonow All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other- wise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer. 23 22 21 20 19 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: von Samsonow, Elisabeth, author. Title: Anti-Electra : the radical totem of the girl / Elisabeth von Samsonow; trans- lated by Anita Fricek and Stephen Zepke. Other titles: Anti-Elektra. English Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2019. | Series: Univo- cal | "A Univocal book." | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2018037440 (print) | ISBN 978-1-5179-0713-6 (pb) Subjects: LCSH: Feminist theory. | Electra complex. | Girls. | Totemism. | Social psychiatry. Classification: LCC HQ1190 .S2425 2019 (print) | DDC 305.4201–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018037440 For Gaia This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments | ix Preface to the English Language Edition | xiii Introduction | 1 1. Electra as Female “Oedipus” | 7 Positive Unrelatedness and Exogamy | 26 Constitutive Strangeness or Primary Exoticism | 46 Schizogamy | 51 Xenological Anamnesis | 58 Totemistic “Objectification” | 62 2. Radical Totemism and Automatism | 65 Theogenesis and the Twilight of Machines | 65 Totem and Xenocracy | 69 Animal Mummy and the Apparatus- Function | 73 Anthropomorphization of the Deity | 82 Apparatus or Weak Totem | 88 3. Totemism and Sculpture: Preliminaries to a Theory of Schizosoma | 95 Metabolism and Therapeutic Schizosoma | 103 Pre- oedipality as a “Plastic Phase” | 106 Excursus: Plasma, Forming, Sculpture | 116 The Statue Delivering Oracles | 119 The Two- Body Doctrine | 126 The One and the Many | 131 Social Sculpture | 136 4. The Labyrinth: General Theory of Schizosoma | 147 Pasiphae’s Cow | 150 The Satellite | 156 5. The Four Pre- oedipal Objects | 163 Failing Equalization and the Emergence of the Complex | 167 Electrification | 169 Appendix: Solyanka State Gallery | 181 Notes | 191 Acknowledgments naturally, this book has more mothers than fathers. It is dedicated to the memory of the splendidly impressive thinker Gerburg Treusch-D ieter, the pioneer and guide, who died on November 19, 2006. In October of that year we had the chance to talk about this book, and as always she listened closely and replied very constructively. I have built my theoretical construction on her shoulders in the hope of continuing her work. The last chapter on the lab- yrinth is dedicated to Renate Lachmann, whose mental and linguistic agility I treasure. I am obviously connected to her by an unresolved labyrinth complex, which makes her my spiritual mother and me her daughter. I lay the same chapter at the feet of my endlessly admired friend Friederike Mayröcker as a token of my affection. From her I have learned that writing is always an incomplete completion and a complete incompletion. Anti- Electra has the nimble and profound Ina Rösing in her backpack; her rare visits were like a wonder of nature and gave me back a joy for my work, opening up a future I no longer dared to think was possible inside the empire of the insti- tution. Her understanding of the house, the most beau- tiful characteristic of a universal ecosophy, shone like a ix
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