Details

ISBN-10: 0231176694
ISBN-13: 9780231176699
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publish Date: 05/29/2018
Dimensions: 9.00" L, 5.90" W, 0.80" H

Death and Mastery: Psychoanalytic Drive Theory and the Subject of Late Capitalism

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Price: $32.00

Overview

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 apart to the impoverishment of both. Returning to this union, Benjamin Y. Fong reconstructs the psychoanalytic “foundation stone” of critical theory in an 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 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 critiques 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 renews an old project of resistance.

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Reviews
At various moments in Death and Mastery, the writing is so down to earth as to make the reader smile: it is wonderful to see academic ideas expressed so matter-of-factly, without the usual rhetorical acrobatics.–Mari Ruti, University of Toronto
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Details

ISBN-10: 0231176694
ISBN-13: 9780231176699
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publish Date: 05/29/2018
Dimensions: 9.00" L, 5.90" W, 0.80" H
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