Victims, gender and jouissance / Victoria Grace.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grace, Victoria, author.

Series:

Routledge research in gender and society ; 32.

Routledge research in gender and society ; 32

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Feminism.

Equality.

Gender identity.

Women and religion.

Holy, The.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (185 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York, N.Y. : Routledge, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Victimization has a long, cross-cultural history. The status of the victim has been the source of active and stirring controversy in cultural theory, criminology and legal theory, philosophy and psychoanalysis; it is of particular interest within feminist theory. Can the victim relation be refused? Are we all victims? The aim of this book is to analyze the intersection of gender and the victim, and the role of a libidinal enjoyment (jouissance) in knotting this relation. The enduring link between the construct of the victim and the sacrificial processes at its heart reveals something ultimately compelling about sacrifice. Legislating victimization out of existence will fail because the victim relation is central to the very formation of human subjectivity and implicated in the reproduction of social life. Lacanian psychoanalysis is used to interrogate the limits to arguments for resolving the problem of sacrificial violence: from Girard to Bataille, from Butler to Kristeva, from de Sade to Nietzsche. However, without denying the inevitable structuring power of the signifier, only its relentless reversion, or undoing, will expose the myths that sustain it, and create an opening within the social beyond this impasse. Such a break is theorized through a confrontation of Lacan with Baudrillard.

Contents:

Introduction

Feminism and the victim

The birth and death of the victim

Gender and sacrificial violence

From mysticism to de Sade

There are no victims

We are all victims

Victims, gender, and jouissance

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-136-31068-1

1-136-31069-X

0-203-11860-X

9780203118603

OCLC:

889813757