Overview

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.

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Reviews

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. * Louis Sass, Distinguished Professor, Department of Clinical Psychology, Program in Comparative Literature, Rutgers University, USA, and author of Madness and Modernism and of “Lacan: The Mind of the Modernist” (Continental Philosophy Review) * 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. * Jeffrey R. Di Leo, Professor of English and Philosophy, University of Houston-Victoria, USA *

Author Information

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.

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