Death and Mastery

Psychoanalytic Drive Theory and the Subject of Late Capitalism
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-0-231-17668-2
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Format (B × H): 236 mm x 162 mm, Gewicht: 456 g

Reihe: New Directions in Critical Theory

The first philosophers of the Frankfurt School famously turned to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud to supplement their Marxist analyses of ideological subjectification. Since the collapse of their proposed "marriage of Marx and Freud," psychology and social theory have grown increasingly apart to the impoverishment of both. Returning to this unholy union, Benjamin Y. Fong reconstructs the psychoanalytic "foundation stone" of critical theory in the effort to once again think together the possibility of psychic and social transformation.

Drawing on the work of Hans Loewald and Jacques Lacan, Fong complicates the famous antagonism between Eros and the death drive, which undergirds the Freudian concepts once appropriated by the critical theorists, in reference to a third term: the woefully undertheorized drive to mastery. Rejuvenating Freudian metapsychology through the lens of this pivotal concept, he then provides fresh perspective on Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse's understandings of psychic life under the influence of modern cultural and technological change. The result is a novel vision of critical theory that rearticulates the nature of subjection in late capitalism and rejuvenates an old project of resistance.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fong, Benjamin Y

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionssoziologie und -psychologie, Spiritualität, Mystik
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologie / Allgemeines & Theorie Psychologische Theorie, Psychoanalyse
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologische Disziplinen Religionspsychologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Gesellschaftstheorie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: In Defense of Drive TheoryPart One: Dream1. DeathPart Two: Interpretation2. Between Need and Dread: Hans Loewald and the Primordial Density3. Aggressivity in Psychoanalysis (Reprised): Jacques Lacan and the Genesis of OmnipotencePart Three: Working Through4. The Psyche in Late Capitalism I: Theodor Adorno5. The Psyche in Late Capitalism II: Herbert Marcuse and the Technological LureConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex3/1/16 06_fong17668_00_toc.doc: ix

Über Autor(innen)

Benjamin Y. Fong is a Harper-Schmidt Fellow at the University of Chicago. His work has been published in Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and the New York Times' philosophy blog, The Stone.