Description
Book SynopsisWhere does perversion begin? Who is perverse? This title presents the history of perversion in the West through a study of great emblematic figures from the Middle Ages, the eighteenth century (Sade), the nineteenth century to modern times (Nazism in the 20th century, and the complementary figures of the paedophile and the terrorist in the 21st).
Trade Review"In this provocative, timely, and engaging study of famous perverse figures, Elisabeth Roudinesco offers us a ‘dark mirror' for human experience. She persuasively argues that because perversion is a uniquely human activity, it allows us to gain access to aspects of the human psyche that are normally hidden from view. By examining case histories of perversion throughout history, Roudinesco shows that perverts provide us with a disturbing reflection of the dark side of the very human societies in which they perform their extreme acts."
Elissa Marder, Emory University "This fascinating book takes us from the question of the origin of the perverse through its semiotic displacements in Christianity and libertinism, by way of Freud as a thinker of the dark Enlightenment, into the emergence of contemporary biocracy and genocide as delight in evil. Required reading for all studies of the history of consciousness."
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University
Table of ContentsIntroduction.
I The Sublime and The Abject.
II Sade Pro and Contra Sade.
III Dark Enlightenment or Barbaric Science?
IV The Auschwitz Confessions.
V The Perverse Society.
Bibliography.
