Understanding Lacan, Understanding Modernism: (Understanding Philosophy, Understanding Modernism)

Presents the most wide-ranging and in-depth exploration of the influence of modernist art and literature on Jacques Lacan, emphasizing the valences of Lacanian psychoanalysis for interpretations of modernism. A notorious presence in French intellectual circles throughout the 20th century, Lacan was personal friends with modernists such as André Breton and Salvador Dalí, and in 1923 was present at the legendary reading of Ulysses at the Shakespeare and Company bookshop by James Joyce, to whom Lacan would devote a year of his seminar in 1975-76. Lacan also contributed to several Surrealist publications, including the famous magazine Minotaure, the inaugural edition of which featured special mention of Lacan's early work on psychosis. However, despite his affinity with early 20th-century modernism, Lacan's name is still more routinely associated with the category of so-called "postmodernism," thus rendering the question of style and periodization somewhat out of focus. Understanding Lacan, Understanding Modernism asks and responds to a series of questions, including: Is Lacan a modernist or a postmodernist, and what is the difference? How significant was the influence of modernist literature and art on the development of Lacan's ideas? How does our understanding of modernism change when viewed through a Lacanian lens? The final section identifies key Lacaninan concepts, offering context and a discussion of their usage and relevance in current thought.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Misunderstanding Lacan Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland, and Sinan Richards, University College Cork, Ireland Part I. Conceptualizing Lacan 1. Lacan: Avant-garde psychiatrist Derek Hook, Duquesne University, USA, and Stijn Vanheule, Ghent University, Belgium 2. Lacan's "New Relay": Salvador Dalí and René Crevel Sinan Richards, University College Cork, Ireland 3. Modernity and the Impotence of Discourse Nadia Bou Ali, American University in Beirut, Lebanon 4. Subjective Destitution as Gift Elizabeth Stewart, Yeshiva University, USA 5. Psychoanalysis in Search of Itself: Jacques Lacan, T.S. Eliot, and the Seductions of Modernism Mario Beira, Independent Scholar, and Dany Nobus, Brunel University London, UK 6. From Irma to Joyce to Beckett: On Lacan's Crisis of Representation Will Greenshields, Zhejiang University, China 7. Lituraterre: How Lacan Literalizes Literature Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania, USA Part II. Lacan and Aesthetics 8. Navel-Gazing: Mário de Sá-Carneiro and Confessional Desire Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland 9. Thinking Again about the End: Kafka, Lacan, and Benjamin Ben Ware, King's College London, UK 10. Bachmann's Malaise and the Language of Hysteria Jamieson Webster, The New School for Social Research, USA, and Marcus Coelen, ICI Berlin, Germany 11. Ret-Con Jouissance: Salman Rushdie and Postcolonial Modernism Clint Burnham, Simon Frasier University, Canada 12. The Tripwire of Modernism: Hunger as Function and Ornament Simon Hajdini, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia 13. Fixing Repetition: Lacan, Beckett, and the Exhaustive Obsession of Counting Arka Chattopadhyay, IIT Gandhinagar, India 14. Queer Company: Henry James and Ghosts Luke Thurston, Aberystwyth University, UK Part III. Glossary 15. Cut Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland 16. Ethics Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland 17. Fantasy Calum Neill, Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland 18. Gaze Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland 19. Letter Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland 20. Object a Nicholas Stock, University of Birmingham, UK 21. Psychosis Stijn Vanheule, Ghent University, Belgium 22. R. S. I. Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania, USA 23. Sexuation Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland Notes on Contributors Index

About the Author :
Thomas Waller is a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow at University College Dublin, Ireland. He has published widely in journals such as Textual Practice, Rethinking Marxism, Modern Fiction Studies, and Qui Parle. His monograph Genres of Transition: Literature and Economy in Portuguese-Speaking Southern Africa is forthcoming in 2024. He is an Associate Editor at CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. Sinan Richards is a Lecturer in French at University College Cork, Ireland. He is the author of Dialectics of Love in Sartre and Lacan (2023), co-editor, alongside Christina Howells, of Michel Serres: ecology, parasitism and the (post)human, a Special Issue of the Modern & Contemporary France Journal 2024, and Fanon and Lacan: Decolonial Psychoanalysis, alongside Derek Hook (forthcoming). Richards serves as a member of the French Studies editorial board and is a correspondent, associate, and referee at the European Journal of Psychoanalysis. He is currently finalizing a book on Fanon and Lacan.

Review :
This fine collection places the enigmatic but indispensable Lacan in his truest context-that of 20th-century modernist art and thought. These essays elucidate what makes Lacan our most sophisticated psychologist: his avant-gardism, his appreciation of the limit situations of human knowledge and existence, and his recognition of paradox as the mark of truth. Waller and Richards have put together an outstanding collection of essays on modernism and modernity in relation to Lacan. Rigorous yet accessible, it is a wide-ranging resource for anyone who strives to better understand the many connections between psychoanalysis, literature, and culture.