The End of Dissatisfaction? Jacques Lacan and the Emerging Society of Enjoyment

Author(s) : Todd McGowan

Book Details

Publisher : State University of New York Press
Published : January 2004
Cover : Paperback
Category :
Lacanian Psychoanalysis
Catalogue No : 92699
ISBN 13 : 9780791459683
ISBN 10 : 0791459683

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Explains why the American cultural obsession with enjoying ourselves actually makes it more difficult to do so.

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Exploring the emergence of a societal imperative to enjoy ourselves, Todd McGowan builds on the work of such theorists as Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Zizek, Joan Copjec, and Theresa Brennan to argue that we are in the midst of a large-scale transformation-a shift from a society oriented around prohibition (i.e., the notion that one cannot just do as one pleases) to one oriented around enjoyment. McGowan identifies many of the social ills of American culture today as symptoms of this transformation: the sense of disconnection, the increase in aggression and violence, widespread cynicism, political apathy, incivility, and loss of meaning. Discussing these various symptoms, he examines various texts from film, literature, popular culture, and everyday life, including Toni Morrison's Paradise, Tony Kushner's Angels in America, and such films as Dead Poets Society and Trigger Effect. Paradoxically, The End of Dissatisfaction? shows how the American cultural obsession with enjoying ourselves actually makes it more difficult to do so.

"This is a compelling and indeed paradigm-shifting book that successfully combines Lacanian theory with cultural criticism to provide an in-depth analysis of the effects of global capitalism on contemporary American subjects. It is essential reading for those interested in cultural studies, psychoanalysis, contemporary film criticism, and contemporary literature." - Jean Wyatt, author of Reconstructing Desire: The Role of the Unconscious in Women's Reading and Writing

Todd McGowan is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Vermont and the author of The Feminine "No!": Psychoanalysis and the New Canon, also published by SUNY Press.

Table Of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Psychoanalysis after Marx
1. From Prohibition to Enjoyment
2. The Decline of Paternal Authority
3. Embracing the Image
4. Shrinking Distances
5. Interpretation under Duress
6. The Appeal of Cynicism
7. The Politics of Apathy
8. A Missing Public World
9. Explosions of Incivility, Aggressiveness, and Violence
Conclusion: From Imaginary Enjoyment to Its Real Counterpart
Notes
Index