In the West, at least, we are becoming massively aware of the extent of coercion and exploitation in sexual relations. However, we should also bear in mind the (no less massive) fact that millions of people on a daily basis flirt, play the game of seduction, with the clear aim to get a partner for… Continue reading Sex, Contracts, and Manners
Tag: sexuality
Transcendental Subjectivity, Sexual Difference, Brain Sciences – Masterclass 1
With the recent turn towards realism, the notion of transcendental subjectivity is (again) dismissed as philosophically outdated and politically harmful. Furthermore, the progress in brain sciences seems to render this notion irrelevant. But what if we still have to learn a lot from the transcendental approach? The two classes will examine how Lacan’s teaching enables… Continue reading Transcendental Subjectivity, Sexual Difference, Brain Sciences – Masterclass 1
Reply to My Critics, Part Two (re: The Sexual is Political)
Two general observations about my numerous critics seem pertinent to me. First, the large majority of attacks on my text follow the rules of the tweet culture with short snaps, retorts, sarcastic or outraged remarks, and with no space for the multiple steps of a line of argumentation. One passage (a sentence, or even a… Continue reading Reply to My Critics, Part Two (re: The Sexual is Political)
A Reply to My Critics (re: The Sexual is Political)
Lately I am getting used to attacks that not only render my position in a totally wrong way but also practice slander pure and simple, so that, at this level, any minimally rational debate becomes meaningless. Among many examples, suffice it to mention Hamid Dabashi, who begins his book Can Non-Europeans Think? with: “‘Fuck you,… Continue reading A Reply to My Critics (re: The Sexual is Political)
The Sexual is Political
Segregated toilet doors are today at the center of a big legal and ideological struggle. On March 29, 2016, a group of 80 predominantly Silicon Valley-based business executives, headlined by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook, signed a letter to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory denouncing a law that prohibits transgender people… Continue reading The Sexual is Political
Hegel on Marriage
Far from providing the natural foundation of human lives, sexuality is the very terrain where humans detach themselves from nature: the idea of sexual perversion or of a deadly sexual passion is totally foreign to the animal universe. Here, Hegel fails with regard to his own standards. He only considers how, in the process of… Continue reading Hegel on Marriage
On David Lynch
In chapter 15 of Seminar XI, Lacan introduces the mysterious notion of the “lamella”: the libido as an organ without body, the incorporeal and for that very reason indestructible life substance that persists beyond the circuit of generation and corruption. It is no accident that commentaries on this passage are rare (for all practical purposes… Continue reading On David Lynch
Avatar: Return of the natives
James Cameron’s Avatar tells the story of a disabled ex-marine, sent from earth to infiltrate a race of blue-skinned aboriginal people on a distant planet and persuade them to let his employer mine their homeland for natural resources. Through a complex biological manipulation, the hero’s mind gains control of his “avatar”, in the body of… Continue reading Avatar: Return of the natives
The Ambiguous Legacy of ‘68
In 1968 Paris, one of the best-known graffiti messages on the city’s walls was “Structures do not walk on the streets!” In other words, the massive student and workers demonstrations of ‘68 could not be explained in the terms of structuralism, as determined by the structural changes in society, as in Saussurean structuralism. French psychoanalyst… Continue reading The Ambiguous Legacy of ‘68
Freud Lives!
In recent years, it’s often been said that psychoanalysis is dead. New advances in the brain sciences have finally put it where it belongs, alongside religious confessors and dream-readers in the lumber-room of pre-scientific obscurantist searches for hidden meaning. As Todd Dufresne put it, no figure in the history of human thought was more wrong… Continue reading Freud Lives!
