Living Attention: On Teresa Brennan

160 Pages·2007·0.58 MB·English

by  Alice A. Jardine, Shannon Lundeen, Kelly Oliver

l i v i n g a t t e n t i o n
on teresa brennan
edited by
alice a. jardine, shannon lundeen, and kelly oliver
Living Attention
SUNY series in Gender Theory
Tina Chanter, editor
Living Attention
On Teresa Brennan
Edited by
Alice A. Jardine
Shannon Lundeen
Kelly Oliver
S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K P R E S S
Published by
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
ALBANY
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Living attention : On Teresa Brennan / edited by Alice A. Jardine, Shannon Lundeen, Kelly
Oliver.
p. cm. — (SUNY series in gender theory)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7914-7079-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7914-7080-0 (pbk : alk. paper)
1. Brennan, Teresa, 1952– 2. Psychoanalysis and feminism. 3. Psychoanalysis.
4. Feminity. 5. Philosophy, Modern. I. Brennan, Teresa, 1952– II. Jardine, Alice.
III. Lundeen, Shannon. IV. Oliver, Kelly.
BF175.4.F45L58 2007
150.92—dc22 2006020751
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Biographical Note on Teresa Brennan
ﱡﱢﱣﱡ
Teresa Brennan was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1952 and died
February 3, 2003 as a result of a tragic hit-and-run. At the time of her
death she held the Schmidt Distinguished Chair in the Humanities at Flor-
ida Atlantic University. Brennan received her bachelor’s degree from the
University of Sydney, a master’s degree from the University of Melbourne,
and a doctorate from Kings College, Cambridge University. Before com-
ing to Florida Atlantic University, she was a visiting professor at Harvard,
Brandeis, and Cornell Universities, New School for Social Research, the
University of Amsterdam, the University of London, Oxford University,
and the University of Melbourne.
Upon arriving at Florida Atlantic, Brennan founded an innovative doc-
toral program in the Comparative Studies Department. Designed by Bren-
nan for scholars active in the public arena, the Public Intellectuals Program
brought an impressive group of visiting scholars and activists to the univer-
sity. Brennan also worked with the United Nations World Health Organiza-
tion, where she was an invited philosopher.
Brennan’s books include Between Feminism and Psychoanalysis (1989);
The Interpretation of the Flesh: Freud and Femininity (1992); History After
Lacan (1993); Vision in Context: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on
Sight (edited with Martin Jay, 1996); Exhausting Modernity: Grounds for a
New Economy (2000); and Globalization and Its Terrors: Daily Life in the West
(2003). Her last book, The Transmission of Affect, was published posthumously
by Cornell University Press in 2004.
v
Contents
ﱡﱢﱣﱡ
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
Shannon Lundeen
1. A Surplus of Living Attention: Celebrating the Life and
Ideas of Teresa Brennan 1
Alice A. Jardine
2. Living A Tension 13
Kelly Oliver
3. Time Difference: The Political Psychoanalysis of
Teresa Brennan 23
Robyn Ferrell
4. Heidegger after Brennan 33
Anne O’Byrne
5. Repressed Knowledge and the Transmission of Affect 45
Susan James
6. Emotion, Affect, Drive: For Teresa Brennan 57
Charles Shepherdson
7. After Teresa Brennan 79
Kalpana Rahita Seshadri
vi
viii Contents
8. Ubuntu and Teresa Brennan’s Energetics 91
Drucilla Cornell
9. What’s Not Seen 101
Gillian Beer
10. Reading Brennan 107
Jane Gallop
11. Can We Make Peace? For Teresa Brennan 117
Julia Kristeva
A Eulogy for Teresa Brennan 127
Susan Buck-Morss
List of Contributors 133
Index 137
Acknowledgments
ﱡﱢﱣﱡ
Alice A. Jardine: I am sincerely grateful to the faculty and staff of Women,
Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Harvard University, and especially to the
Chair of WGS, Afsaneh Najmabadi, for their generous support of the memo-
rial conference in Teresa’s honor held at Harvard on May 1, 2004. I am grate-
ful to my co-editors, Shannon Lundeen and Kelly Oliver, for their spirit
and determination to make this volume happen. I want to express my sin-
cere admiration for the many friends and colleagues from around the world
who have spoken at one or more of the conferences and panels organized in
Teresa’s honor since her untimely death. I especially want to thank Teresa’s
daughter, Sangi; Angela Williams, Sangi’s guardian angel; my many priceless
friends; and my own dear Anna for all their love and moral support during the
time this volume was being compiled. Finally, thank you, Teresa, for teaching
me so much about what really matters in our short lives on earth, and espe-
cially about how to give and receive a quality of Living Attention that can
really make a difference.
Shannon Lundeen: I would like to thank my co-editors, Kelly Oliver and
Alice Jardine, for giving me the opportunity to work on such an inspiring
and robust collection of essays on Teresa Brennan. I would also like to thank
Teresa for her unwavering commitments to feminist theory, social justice, and
radical thinking and activism, all of which are evident in the scholarship that
she has left us. To each of the authors in this volume, I would like to express
my gratitude for not only your insightful, critical essays, but also for your
receptivity, fl exibility, and promptness during the editing stages of the book.
Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to my family and friends for
supporting me in this and all other projects that I’ve taken on.
Kelly Oliver: Thanks to Elizabeth Grosz for helping to organize the Teresa
Brennan Memorial Symposium at Stony Brook University, Manhattan, Octo-
ber 2–4, 2003. Thanks to all of the participants, some of whom have contrib-
uted to this volume. Shannon Lundeen, Michael Sigrist, and Julie Sushytska
provided invaluable assistance for that event. Thanks to Shannon Lundeen
ix