...The American Optic is an impressive act of critical diplomacy ... Tuhkanen's work seeks to acquaint two writers (Wright and Lacan) and two discourses (African American literature and psychoanalysis) not traditionally understood to be on speaking terms ... [it] is stunning in its sweep: in just under two hundred pages, it traverses an extraordinarily wide swath of literary and theoretical terrain, engaging along the way not only Lacan, but also Hegel, Fanon, and Foucault; not only Wright, but also Baldwin, Douglass, and Du Bois. – African American Review
The American Optic makes a very significant contribution to the discussion about the intersection of psychoanalysis and race. The author stages a provocative and illuminating dialogue between various psychoanalytic theories (primarily those of Lacan) and various African-American literary and cultural texts (particularly the novels of Richard Wright). – Abdul R. JanMohamed, author of The Death-Bound-Subject: Richard Wright's Archaeology of Death