Overview
In ""Beyond the Pleasure Principle"", Freud observed that the life-enhancing pleasure principle seems disrupted by something internal to the psyche. He took into account the possibility of a ""death instinct"" bent on returning the living organism to its origin of undifferentiated matter. In ""Beyond Pleasure: Freud, Lacan, Barthes"", Margaret Iversen uses the writing of Freud, Lacan, the Surrealists, and Roland Barthes to elaborate a theory of art beyond the pleasure principle. Lacan was in close contact with the Surrealists and, early in his career, exchanged ideas with Dali. This book offers a detailed reading of Dali's ""paranoiac-critical"" tour de force, ""The Tragic Myth of Millet's Angelus"", in which he demonstrates a method of interpretation that involves the projection and analysis of paranoid fantasies. The author later discusses the aesthetic dimension of the disintegrative death drive explored in Georges Bataille's ""Eroticism"" and in Anton Ehrenzweig's ""Hidden Order of Art"", both of which inspired Robert Smithson. Iversen also takes up a postwar-era narrative that examines Maya Lin's ""Vietnam Veterans Memorial"" and Robert Smithson's ""Spiral Jetty"". ""Beyond Pleasure"" shows that the aesthetics of Freud's theory continue to resonate in the contemporary art world.
Full Product Details
Author: Margaret Iversen
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
Imprint: Pennsylvania State University Press
Volume: 5
Dimensions:
Width: 21.60cm
, Height: 1.40cm
, Length: 24.10cm
Weight: 0.767kg
ISBN: 9780271029719
ISBN 10: 0271029714
Pages: 204
Publication Date: 15 August 2007
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.
Reviews
This new book by Margaret Iversen is truly exceptional. Ranging across modern and contemporary art with remarkable adeptness, each of its chapters has a lustre and perfection that reflects her profound knowledge of philosophical aesthetics and psychoanalysis. It is guaranteed to reinvigorate debate about art and psychoanalysis. - David Lomas, University of Manchester
""This new book by Margaret Iversen is truly exceptional. Ranging across modern and contemporary art with remarkable adeptness, each of its chapters has a lustre and perfection that reflects her profound knowledge of philosophical aesthetics and psychoanalysis. It is guaranteed to reinvigorate debate about art and psychoanalysis."" - David Lomas, University of Manchester""
Author Information
Margaret Iversen is Professor of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex.
