Wrestling with the Angel : experiments in symbolic life /
Wrestling with the Angel is a meditation on contemporary political, legal, and social theory from a psychoanalytic perspective. It argues for the enabling function of formal and symbolic constraints in sustaining desire as a source of creativity, innovation, and social change. The book begins by cal...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Columbia University Press,
2014.
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| Series: | Insurrections.
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | Wrestling with the Angel is a meditation on contemporary political, legal, and social theory from a psychoanalytic perspective. It argues for the enabling function of formal and symbolic constraints in sustaining desire as a source of creativity, innovation, and social change. The book begins by calling for a richer understanding of the psychoanalytic concept of the symbolic and the resources it might offer for an examination of the social link and the political sphere. The symbolic is a crucial dimension of social coexistence but cannot be reduced to the social norms, rules, and practices with which it is so often collapsed. As a dimension of human life that is introduced by language and thus inescapably other with respect to the laws of nature the symbolic is an undeniable fact of human existence. Yet the same cannot be said of the forms and practices that represent and sustain it. In designating these laws, structures, and practices as fictions, Jacques Lacan makes clear that the symbolic is a dimension of social life that has to be created and maintained and that can also be displaced, eradicated, or rendered dysfunctional. The symbolic fictions that structure and support the social tie are therefore historicizable, emerging at specific times and in particular contexts and losing their efficacy when circumstances change. They are also fragile and ephemeral, needing to be renewed and reinvented if they are not to become outmoded or ridiculous. Therefore the aim of this study is not to call for a return to traditional symbolic laws but to reflect on the relationship between the symbolic in its most elementary or structural form and the function of constraints and limits. |
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| Item Description: | Electronic resource. |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xiv, 300 pages) : illustrations |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780231537605 (electronic bk.) 0231537603 (electronic bk.) |