Lacan, Discourse, and Social Change : A Psychoanalytic Cultural Criticism / Mark Bracher.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bracher, Mark, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Lacan, Jacques, 1901-1981.

Lacan, Jacques.

Discourse analysis.

Language and culture.

Psychoanalysis and literature.

Social change.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Convinced that cultural criticism need not merely be an academic exercise but can help improve people's lives, Mark Bracher proposes a method of cultural criticism which is based on the principles of psychoanalytic treatment and which aims to alter subjectivity and behavior.In this forceful and engagingly written book, Bracher first accounts for the failure of contemporary cultural criticism to achieve significant social impact. He then offers a model of analysis that draws on Lacan's theoretical insights into the structure of subjectivity and the psychological functions of discourse, asserting that the use of this model can promote collective psychological change. While cultural criticism has generally focused on texts, Bracher instead analyzes audiences' actual responses-to a variety of discourses from "high" as well as popular culture: the political speeches of Ronald Reagan and Jesse Jackson, anti-abortion propaganda, pornography, Keats's "To Autumn," and Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Through analyzing these responses, Bracher is able to uncover the unconscious identifications and fantasies of the respondents-an intervention that, he argues, has the potential for altering subjectivity. In his view, such a method of cultural criticism is both unusually powerful and ethnically defensible, since instead of attacking or upholding a group's values, it reveals the psychological conflicts manifest in responses to particular texts.Lacan, Discourse, and Social Change will be essential reading for students as well as specialists in such fields as cultural criticism, feminist theory, literary theory, psychoanalytic criticism, reader-response criticism, reader-response criticism, and Lacanian theory.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Introduction: For a Response-Centered Psychoanalytic Cultural Criticism

PART I. Theory

1. Desire in Discourse

2. Social Change and the Ethics of Critical Discourse

PART II. Practice

3. Pornography

4. Antiabortionist Discourse

5. Political Campaign Rhetoric

6. Heart of Darkness

7. "To Autumn"

EPILOGUE

W0RKS CITED

INDEX

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 20. Sep 2019)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780801427848

0801427843

9781501722295

1501722298

OCLC:

1083594250