Perversion and the Social Relation (Series: SIC 4) [Paperback]

Molly Anne Rothenberg (Author), Slavoj Zizek (Author), Dennis A. Foster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 21, 2003

The masochist, the voyeur, the sadist, the sodomite, the fetishist, the pedophile, and the necrophiliac all expose hidden but essential elements of the social relation. Arguing that the concept of perversion, usually stigmatized, ought rather to be understood as a necessary stage in the development of all non-psychotic subjects, the essays in Perversion and the Social Relation consider the usefulness of the category of the perverse for exploring how social relations are formed, maintained, and transformed.

By focusing on perversion as a psychic structure rather than as aberrant behavior, the contributors provide an alternative to models of social interpretation based on classical Oedipal models of maturation and desire. At the same time, they critique claims that the perverse is necessarily subversive or liberating. In their lucid introduction, the editors explain that while fixation at the stage of the perverse can result in considerable suffering for the individual and others, perversion motivates social relations by providing pleasure and fulfilling the psychological need to put something in the place of the Father. The contributors draw on a variety of psychoanalytic perspectives—Freudian and Lacanian—as well as anthropology, history, literature, and film. From Slavoj Zizek’s meditation on “the politics of masochism” in David Fincher’s movie Fight Club through readings of works including William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner, Don DeLillo’s White Noise, and William Burroughs’s Cities of the Red Night, the essays collected here illuminate perversion’s necessary role in social relations.

Contributors. Michael P. Bibler, Dennis A. Foster, Bruce Fink, Octave Mannoni, E. L. McCallum, James Penney, Molly Anne Rothenberg, Nina Schwartz, Slavoj Zizek

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The only true awareness of our subjection is the awareness of the obscene, excessive pleasure (surplus enjoyment) we get from it. This is why the first gesture of liberation is not to get rid of this excessive pleasure, but to assume it actively.”—Slavoj Zizek, from his chapter, “The Ambiguity of the Masochist Social Link”

About the Author

Molly Anne Rothenberg is Associate of English and Co-Director of the Literature Program at Tulane University. She is a practicing psychoanalyst and the author of Re-Thinking Blake’s Textuality.

Dennis A. Foster is Frensley Professor of English at Southern Methodist University. He is author of Confession and Complicity in Narrative and Sublime Enjoyment.

Slavoj Zizek is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Studies, Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is the author of many books, and editor of Cogito and the Unconscious, Gaze and Voice as Love Objects (coedited), and Tarrying with the Negative, all published by Duke University Press.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books (May 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822330970
• ISBN-13: 978-0822330974
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,020,051 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"The most dangerous philosopher in the West," (says Adam Kirsch of The New Republic) Slavoj Zizek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include "First as Tragedy, Then as Farce;" "Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle;" "In Defense of Lost Causes;" "Living in the End Times;" and many more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Barely worth it, February 23, 2004

By 

JJJJS (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perversion and the Social Relation (Series: SIC 4) (Paperback)

You'd think that it would be impossible for an essay-compilation on perversion to crash and burn, but this one pulls it off! I own and enjoy the three other installments in the 'Sic' series ("Gaze and Voice as Love Objects", "Cogito and the Unconscious", and "Sexuation"), so the incredible awfulness of this offering came as an unpleasant surprise. You can't blame me for looking forward to a book on perversion, especially since it belonged to a decent series and was co-edited by one of my favourites (Slavoj).

Unfortunately, editors Molly Anne Rothenberg, Dennis A. Foster, and the Z-Man have haphazardly thrown together a collection of weak, watered-down essays on perversion and its partnership with social relation. Bruce Fink (best known for his translation of Lacan's seminars), contributes a painfully general piece which is appropriately titled "Perversion"; Nina Schwartz's "Exotic Rituals and Family Values in 'Exotica'" subjects Egoyan's film to the standard boring reading demanded by the film. Zizek's "The Ambiguity of the Masochist Social Link" is downright embarrassing - while I love Zizek and often jump to his defense, there's nothing worth defending in this essay. It consists mostly of bits cobbled together from some of his better works which don't connect to one another in any meaningful way. We all know that Zizek can be (and often is) arrogant, pretentious, self-plagiarizing, WRONG, and occasionally completely stupid - but this paper was the limit. In somewhat better news, James Penney's "Confessions of a Medieval Sodomite" is okay (but it's just okay), and the book also includes Octave Mannoni's "I Know Well, but All the Same..." (we can thank Mannoni for giving us the catchphrase "Je sais bien, mais quand meme" to explain the fetishistic split). So there's a plus. An insignificant plus, but still a plus.

I'd recommend borrowing this one at the library first, so you can be disappointed for free.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars complexity of perversion, December 11, 2006

By 

analyst critic - See all my reviews

This review is from: Perversion and the Social Relation (Series: SIC 4) (Paperback)

The essays in this collection represent the range of psychoanalytic theories on perversion and their application to cultural analysis as well as literary, historical, and cinematic texts. It contains a reprint of Bruce Fink's accessible discussion of the Lacanian theory of perversion as well as Octave Mannoni's seminal, and previously untranslated, article, which informs the work of many French scholars and analysts of perversion. Other essays include Burroughs' Cities of the Red Night, Egoyan's Exotica, Finch's Fight Club, De Lillo's White Noise, the confessions of medieval pederast Gilles de Rais, Styron's Confessions of Nat Turner and homosexuality. Rothenberg and Foster make clear in their introduction that these selections demonstrate the premise that perversion ought to be approached as a contribution to the social relation than simply as a pathology. Very little work has been done in this area, but the collection represents a wide range of possible approaches and should serve as a stimulus to further work in this important subject.