Description
Book SynopsisAn anthology of writing by Jacqueline Rose, a singular, provocative critic renowned for her commitment to psychoanalytic theory as a uniquely productive way of analyzing literature, culture, politics, and society.
Trade Review“Jacqueline Rose is one of our most trenchant, politically engaged intellectuals. It will be important for a wide range of readers to have this collection of her essays, along with the introduction—which will help readers unfamiliar with the full range of her work—and the splendid interview that concludes the volume.”—
Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor, University of California, Berkeley
“Jacqueline Rose, friend and ally, achieves what many of us attempt: to preserve the delicacy of a training in literary reading in the tough realities of the political. She made psychoanalysis possible for a whole generation. This book gives a sense of the range: analysis, text, war—from South Africa to Palestine.”—
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor, Columbia University
“Google's motto is ‘Don't Be Evil,’ but is there something near to evil in writing itself? So suggests a superb essay here, ‘The Body of Evil,’ which brings together Hannah Arendt, JM Coetzee, and the aftermath of 9/11. ‘People using the term “evil” all sound the same,’ comments Rose, in a piece that shows off her discursively probing style to best effect... The rest of the collection sees a psychoanalytic reading of Peter Pan, an intriguing defence of Sylvia Plath's notorious poem ‘Daddy,’ and interesting interventions on Eliot-on-Hamlet, Virginia Woolf, Freud, Melanie Klein, and Israel-Palestine (with Amos Oz a key reference). The editors do a fine job of introducing the work.” -- Steven Poole * The Guardian *
“Rose brings courage, insight and compassion to every topic in this book, and gives the readers a taste of her uniquely feminine way of looking at the world: at injustice, identity, nationality, language, literature, and more through a psychoanalytic lens. A writer, literary critic, lecturer, and teacher, Rose’s oeuvre is impressively diverse.” -- Michal Adiv-Ginach * American Journal of Psychoanalysis *
“
The Jacqueline Rose Reader offers an insightful and informative overview of the output (so far) of a provocative and influential writer. It will be an important resource for teachers and students of psychoanalytic theory, of literary studies, and of cultural studies, and, hopefully, will introduce new readers to Rose’s wide-ranging and valuable work.” -- Hannah Priest * Feminism and Psychology *
Table of ContentsReading Jacqueline Rose: An Introduction / Ben Naparstek and Justin Clemens 1
Part I. Analysis
Introduction to Part I 27
1. Femininity and Its Discontents 31
2. Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the
école freudienne 48
3. Negativity in the Work of Melanie Kline 61
4. Mass Psychology 86
Part II. Nation
Introduction to Part II 117
5. States of Fantasy 123
6. Just, Lasting, Comprehensive 138
7. Apathy and Accountability: The Challenge of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to the Intellectual in the Modern World 156
8. The Body of Evil: Arendt, Coetzee, and 9/11 170
9. "Imponderables in Thin Air": Zionism as Psychoanalysis (Critique) 188
Part III. Representations
Introduction to Part III 215
10. Sexuality in the Field of Vision 221
11.
Hamlet: The "Mona Lisa" of Literature 228
12. Virginia Woolf and the Death of Modernism 242
13. "Daddy" 257
14. Peter Pan and Freud: Who Is Talking and to Whom? 274
15. Excerpts from
Albertine: A Novel 300
Part IV. Interventions
Introduction to Part IV 315
16. "Infinite Justice" 319
17. We Are All Afraid, But of What, Exactly? 320
18. Why Zionism Today Is the Real Enemy of the Jews 322
19. Reflections on Israel's 2008 Incursion into Gaza 326
20. Why Howard Jacobson Is Wrong 328
21. Holocaust Premises: Political Implications of the Traumatic Frame 332
22. A Conversation with Jacqueline Rose 341
Notes 361
Jacqueline Rose: A Select Bibliography, 1974–2010 413
Index 419
