Description
Book SynopsisWeaves together three themes at the intersection of Jacques Lacan and the philosophical tradition. This book also aims to explore, beyond the strict limits of Lacanian theory, possible points of intersection between psychoanalysis and other domains, including questions of race, biology, and evolutionary theory.
Trade Review"Refusing dogmas of the established paradigms of interpretation, and yet respecting the specificity of psychoanalytic, philosophic, and literary practices, "Lacan and the Limit of Language" stages refreshing encounters between Lacanian psychoanalysis and its others: Kristeva, Heidegger, Derrida, or Foucault, to name just a few thinkers treated in this impressive study. In the process the book invites us to reflect again on the key concepts structuring these encounters: emotion, the body, race, sexuality, mood, tragedy, and above all, on the ethico-political implications of the limits of signification." -- -Ewa Ziarek author of "The Ethics of Dissensus" "In Lacan and the limits of language, Charles Shepherdson shows with admirable clarity, cogency and competence that psychoanalysis founds an anthropology of love, hate, desire, beauty, fantasy and memory while keeping its cutting edge in today's discussions of war, race, sexual difference and tragedy. Thanks to him, thinking with Lacan becomes an act of enlightenment." -- -Jean-Michel Rabate Vartan Gregorian Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania "Shepherdson's knowledge and use of the history of philosophy is stunning." -- -Kelly Oliver Vanderbilt University "Shepherdson's broadly learned background--in classics, philosophy, literature, critical and literary theory, and medical science--coupled with his lucid prose, makes him a compelling reader of Lacan. A more supple, nuanced and engaging Lacan emerges from the patient encounters Shepherdson stages among disciplines--a Lacan for our time, for time out of joint. Shepherdson is the analyst's analyst." -- -Arden Reed Pomona College "He (Shepherdson) compels the reader to ask deeper question of psychoanalysis and, indeed, to question the very aim of psychoanalysis" -- -Melissa Conroy Muskingum College "Shepherdson's writings are crucial interventions in the seemingly endless debates about the excesses of 'discursive construction.' And while the essays in this volume range far beyond those debates, they remind the reader of the costs of being caught up in a kind of oppositional thinking that seems to cling to the nineteenth century, as if Freud had never existed." -- -Elizabeth Weed Brown University
