Description
Book SynopsisLacan and the Matter of Origins traces the development of Lacan''s thinking about the role of the mother in psychical formation. It examines the conceptual struggle throughout his work over issues of maternal agency in relation to the constitution of human subjectivity, and the theoretical, historical, and autobiographical reasons for this struggle. Lacan is widely held to emphasize the paternal dimension of human subjectivity and the phallic signifier. This book demonstrates that the mother occupies a crucial position in the Lacanian project, even if the maternal relation is not systematically theorized. The maternal figure appears as a Cheshire Cat who fades away and reappears at different times.
The book traces the major shifts in Lacan''s understanding of the maternal within an intertextual framework that includes Augustine, Klein, Kojève, and Rank. Pursuing in Lacan''s writings the sometimes contradictory or unassimilable functions of the mother, the book closely t
Trade Review
“This outstanding book represents an entirely new approach to Lacan, treating the historical development in his work of theoretical shifts in the understanding of the mother in psychic development. I think it will be received as one of the most important introductions to and commentaries on Lacan in English.”—Daniel Boyarin, University of California, Berkeley
Table of Contents
Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. A brief history of The Origin of the World: Courbet and Lacan; 2. Early Hetero-orthodoxies: Lacan's family complexes; 3. 'History is not the Past': Lacan's critique of Ferenczi; 4. On chimpanzees and children in the looking-glass: Wallon's mirror experiments and Lacan's theory of reflective recognition; 5. Topographies of conflict: the Machia in the mirror stage; 6. 'Lacannibalism': the return to Freud's idea of identification; 7. Augustine in contexts (Part I): the riddle of a repetition; 8. Augustine in contexts (Part II): three variations on a scene from the Confessions; 9. 'Grandma, what a dreadfully big mouth you have!' Lacan's parables of the maternal object; Epilogue; Notes; Index.
