Subject to Ourselves: An Introduction to Freud, Psychoanalysis, and Social Theory

201 Pages·2004·14.334 MB·English

by  Anthony Elliott

Subject to Ourselves
Great Barrington Books
Bringing the old and new together
in the spirit of W. E. B. Du Bois
An irnprint edited by Charles Lernert
r..o r..o
Titles Available
Keeping Good Time: Reflections on Knowledge, Power, and People
by Avery F. Gordon (2004)
Going Down for Air: A Memoir in Search of a Subject
by Derek Sayer (2004)
The Souls of Black Folk
100th Anniversary Edition
by W. E. B. Du Bois, with cornrnentaries by Manning Marable,
Charles Lernert, and Cheryl Townsend Gilkes (2004)
Sociology After the Crisis, Second Edition
by Charles Lernert (2004)
Subject to Ourselves: Social Theory, Psychoanalysis and
Postmodernity, Second Edition
by Anthony Elliott, with a new foreword by Zygrnunt Baurnan (2004)
Forthcorning
Seeing Sociologically: The Routine Grounds of Social Action
by Harold Garfinkel, edited and introduced by Anne Rawls,
foreword by Charles Lernert (Fall 2004 )
Thinking the Unthinkable: An Introduction to Social Theories
by Charles Lernert (Fall 2005)
An Anatomy of Critical Theory
by Kyungrnan Kirn (Fall 2005)
SUBJECTTO
OURSELVES
Social Theory, Psychoanalysis
and Postmodernity
Second Edition
Anthony Elliott
New Foreword by
Zygmunt Bauman
I
~ ~~o~~!~n~~~up
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2004 by Paradigm Publishers
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, NewYork, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Prancis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 2004, Taylor & Frands.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Designed and Typeset by Straight Creek Bookmakers
ISBN 13: 978-1-59451-006-9 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-59451-007-6 (pbk)
For Nicola
(Nior dhliirt einne liorn go rnbeadh laethanta
rnar sen)
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Contents
Preface ix
Foreword by Zygmunt Bauman xi
Introduction to the Second Edition: Psychoanalysis,
Modernity, Postmodernism: Theorizing For a New Era xv
Introduction to the First Edition: Fantasy, Modem and Postmodem 1
The Ambivalence of Identity 5
Between Modernity and Postmodernity
Modern hopes, modern fears 8
Self and desire in psychoanalysis 12
Postmodernity: theory, identity, society 18
Contemporary psychoanalysis, postmodern
~~~ ~
Postmodernity and otherness, or respacing self
and world 31
2 Contradictions of the Imagination 39
Freud in the Stream of Modernity
Inner conflict, outer certainty 42
The seductions of psychoanalysis 50
The psychologization of desire 56
MOdernity, fantasy, denial 62
vii
Contents
3 The Epic of Mastery 65
Modernist Edges of Fantasy
Modernity as risk and reflexivity 66
The split subject of reflexivity 70
Fantasy and reflexive turbulence: an alternative
view 75
Technoscience, power, mastery 78
Excursus: on Bosnia and the otherness of fantasy 80
Reflexivity and critical self-reflection 92
4 Postmodern Contexts, Plural Worlds 95
The Possibilities and Pressures of Social Change
Postmodernity, space-time transformations,
floating identities 97
Contemporary psychoanalytic dialogues 101
Experience, thinking, containment 104
Thinking and denial, postmodern 110
Social theory and postmodernity: Jameson and
Baudrillard 112
Postmodern dimensions of processing and
misrecognition: some implications 119
5 Postmodernity, or Modernity in Reverse 127
Reflexive Scanning, Strangeness, Imagination
Reflexivity, scanning and postmodernity 129
Strangeness, shock and the matrix of containment 138
Sketches of postmodern containment 146
Scanning psychic space: the Walkman 146
Stretching culture: the O.J. Simpson trial 149
Living with catastrophic change 152
Afterword: the politics of imagination 154
Notes 156
Index 167
viii
Preface
Of my various writings exploring the relationship between social theory
and psychoanalysis, this book has somehow managed to scoop up the
most diverse readership. Inquiries from specialists working in the fields
of, say, comparative literat ure or urban studies, as weH as student re
quests to explain further the concept of "reflexive scanning" and why
it takes off in conditions of postmodernity, have aH been forthcoming
over the years. So, it is especiaHy pleasing to have a new edition of the
book published.
Charles Lemert was instrumental in making this happen, and he
joined with Dean Birkenkamp at Paradigm Publishers in supporting
the project throughout. Elizabeth Wood, at the Centre for Critical
Theory at the University of the West of England, oversaw the prepara
tion of this work with patience and grace, and her input has been
invaluable.
In many various ways, this is Nicola Geraghty's book. Again, with
astonishment, I can only remark that the days got better than even the
best we knew. Her influence upon my argument, along with that of the
late Albert Paolini, is impossible to fuHy acknowledge.
Anthony EHiott
Bristol, England
ix