Riddling between Oedipus and the Sphinx : ontology, hauntology, and heterologies of the grotesque / Yuan Yuan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Yuan, Yuan, 1957- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Grotesque.

Physical Description:

vii, 239 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham : University Press of America, Inc., [2016]

Summary:

The issue of the other has always been an urgent one, especially since the 1980s, when the political debates over race, gender, class, culture, ethnicity, and post-colonialism took the central stage. The Riddling between Oedipus and the Sphinx: Ontology, Hauntology, and Heterologies of the Grotesque probes the polemic status of the other and the dubious nature of the subject from a heterodox perspective of an emblematic grotesque figure, the Sphinx-the mystical trickster and the guardian of sacred knowledge in Egyptian culture. In Greek mythology, Oedipus, the epitome of Western logos, solved the Sphinx's riddle with a single word, "Man. "This evocation for the phantom of a solipsistic subject discloses, in effect, Oedipus' latent grotesque disparity. The book explores the encounter of this unlikely pair to inquire the riddling relationship between the singular subject and the grotesque other in the context of modern discourses of the subject and postmodern theories of the other. Book jacket.

Contents:

I The Primal Scenes Revisited: Archeology and Genealogy of the Grotesque 15

1 The Uncanny Subject between Aesthetics and Metaphysics 17

I The Current Critical Scenes: Figuration of the Grotesque 18

II Archaeology of the Grotesque: Dis-figuration at the Primal Scene 23

III Genealogy of the Grotesque: Transfiguration in Different Aesthetic Modes 27

IV Conclusion: Aesthetics of Art and Metaphysics of Being 39

Notes 41

2 The Mystical Encounter between the Sphinx and Oedipus 47

I The Sphinx: Emblem of the Grotesque and the Problematic Origin 47

II The Sphinx at Different Locations: Transfiguration of Identities 51

III The Encounter: Fall of the Sphinx and Rise of Oedipus in the Oedipus Legend 53

IV Shift and Drift between Oedipus and the Sphinx in and beyond the Legend 55

V The Ontological Mystery between Oedipus and the Sphinx 60

VI The Riddle between Oedipus and the Sphinx 65

VII Conclusion of Part One: The Uncanny Subject of the Grotesque 70

Notes 72

II Reconfiguring the Grotesque between the Sphinx and Oedipus 77

3 The Enigmatic Sphinx: The Grotesque Other in Aesthetic Speculation 79

I Hegel's Symbolic Art: A Metaphysical Speculation of the Grotesque 80

II Nietzsche's Dionysus: Mythical Desires toward the Grotesque 87

III Freud's "The 'Uncanny'" and the Grotesque: Mother and the Other 95

Notes 104

4 Oedipus Obsessed: Grotesque Desires and the Phantom Subject 109

I Derrida's Hauntology: The Spectral and Specular Other 111

II Solipsistic Desire, Negative Signification, and the Ghost Subject in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit 113

III The Ascetic ideal and Nihilistic Desire: The Disembodied Subject and Bad Conscience in Nietzsche's The Genealogy of Morals 122

IV Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents and The Future of an Illusion: Between Oedipal Rites and Narcissistic Desire 128

V Conclusion of Part Two: The Modern Subject 136

Notes 137

III The Subject of the Other(s) in Ontology and Heterologies 143

5 Oracles and Ghosts: The Dubious Other in Lacan's Discourse of the Subject 145

I Repeating after Freud and the Sacred Words from the Spectral Other 145

II The Grotesque: Surrealistic Images, Poststructuralist Ideas, and Modern Ethos 147

III The Specular Other and the Imaginary Subject 151

IV The Linguistic Other and the Symbolic Subject 154

V The Dubious Other(s) in the Unconscious 158

VI No Other of the Other? The Wholly or Holy Other without Alterity or Difference 166

Notes 169

6 From Ontology to Heterologies: A Postmodern Perspective on Otherness 175

I The Death of God and the Postmodern Turn toward the Other 177

II Bakhtin: Carnivalizing the Grotesque in Folk Culture 184

III Kristeva: Abjecting the Grotesque and the Other in Process 191

IV Anzaldúa: Hybridizing the Grotesque: The New Mestiza in Ethnographical Borderlands 201

Notes 209.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-234) and index.

ISBN:

0761866620

9780761866626

OCLC:

920017729