Search

In a political moment plagued with conspiracy theories and other perversions of logic, Joshua Gunn's book Political Perversion: Rhetorical Aberration in the Time of Trumpeteering suggests that such...

Resumo: O presente ensaio aborda alguns aspectos da temática das perversões e seu arcabouço teórico-clínico. Inicialmente, parte-se de uma revisão bibliográfica dos textos freudianos sobre as perversões e sua íntima imbricação com o sexual em sua obra. Em seguida, serão analisadas as contribuições teóricas de Robert Stoller sobre a clínica das perversões e sua conceitualização como forma erótica do ódio. Procura-se apontar como as inovações teóricas de Stoller possibilitaram uma nova forma de compreensão na clínica das perversões. Conclui- se que as observações clínicas feitas por Freud e, posteriormente, Stoller ecoam na contemporaneidade, demonstrando a inovação e ousadia conceitual de ambos os autores.Palavras-chave: Perversão. Erotização do ódio. Sexualidade. Conceito.Abstract: This essay addresses some aspects of the theme of perversions and their theoretical-clinical framework. Initially, it starts with a bibliographic review of Freudian texts on perversions and their intimate overlap with the sexual in his work. Then, Robert Stoller ́s theoretical contributions on the clinic of perversions and their conceptualization as an erotic from of hatred will be analyzed. It seeks to point out how Stoller ́s theoretical innovations enable a new form of understanding in the clinic of perversions. It is concluded that the clinical observations made by Freud and, later, Stoller echo in contemporary times, demonstrating the innovation and conceptual boldness of both authors. Keywords: Perversion. Hatred eroticization. Sexuality. Concept.

EnglishThis article combines Deleuze’s extraordinary analysis of Michel Tournier’s Friday, where we find the presentation of a duplicated, perverted, version of Robinson Crusoe when compared to Daniel Defoe’s classical version, with a critical analysis of conceptions such as being-in-the-world, stemming from Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology. My point is that without Others [Autrui], or what Deleuze calls the structure-Other [structure Autrui], it is the very possibility of ‘interpreting’ being-in-the-world which is at stake, being a world without Others, the structure-Other, one wherein a pre-ontological comprehension of being is ‘uncomprehended', no longer being it possible to attain a facticity of being precisely insofar as one lives, suffers, without Others, a process of an inverted nature, not so much of the facticity of being but of its ‘defacticization’ (the movement of being-thrown out of and not into the world). I propose, therefore, a new conception of the limit of being-in-the-world not in terms of death but of Others, of what it is to lose Others, the structure-Other, and how this loss implies losing being-in-the-world, the very possibility of interpreting, of comprehending its different structures (being-there, being-with, being-towards-death, etc.). The concept of Others functions then as a giant fold between being-in-the-world and what Artaud called ‘the other side of existence’, but also between the absence of Others and the creation of ‘worlds without Others’, all of which ‘minor’, ‘desert islands’, ‘plateaus’, constituted in the immanence of this absence, of the ‘outside’. portuguesEste artigo combina a extraordinaria analise por parte de Deleuze de Sexta-feira ou os Limbos do Pacifico, de Michel Tournier, que apresenta um Robinson Crusoe duplo, perverso, em relacao ao de Daniel Defoe, com uma analise critica de concepcoes como a de ser-no-mundo, resultantes da hermeneutica fenomenologica de Heidegger. O meu ponto e que sem outrem [Autrui], ou o que Deleuze chama a estrutura-outrem [structure Autrui], nao e possivel ‘interpretar' ser-no-mundo, que, por outras palavras, o que se descompreende sem esta estrutura e justamente uma compreensao pre-ontologica do ser, nao se atingindo a facticidade do ser precisamente por se viver, se sofrer, sem outrem, um processo inverso, o de uma ‘desfactizacao' do proprio fato ou facticidade do ser. Proponho, portanto, uma nova concepcao do limite de ser-no-mundo nao em termos da morte mas de outrem, do que e perder outrem, a estrutura-outrem, e como esta perda implica a perda de ser-no-mundo, a possibilidade ela mesma de interpretar, de compreender, as suas diferentes estruturas (ser-ai, ser-com, ser-para-a-morte, etc.) O conceito de outrem funciona assim como uma gigante dobra entre ser-no-mundo e o seu avesso ou o que Artaud definiu como ‘o outro lado da existencia’, mas tambem entre a ausencia de outrem e a criacao de ‘mundos sem outrem', todos eles ‘menores', ‘ilhas desertas', 'plateaus', constituidos na imanencia desta ausencia, do proprio ‘fora'.

This article analyses the slippery notions of the normal and normality in select works of Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902) and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and argues that homosexuality became a ‘boundary object’ between the normal and the abnormal in their works. Constructing homosexuality as ‘normal enough’ provided these two key thinkers of the fin de siècle with an opportunity to challenge societal and medical norms: Krafft-Ebing did this through mapping perversions; Freud, by challenging perceived norms about sexual development more broadly. The article submits that the scientific logic presented in Krafft-Ebing’s seminal case study compilation Psychopathia Sexualis and Freud’s early theoretical writings and cases, including Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), was itself haunted by notions of norms and the normal that were not always easy to resolve, and sometimes involved a certain amount of inspired conjecture on the part of both thinkers in order to develop and validate their differing tripartite models of normality. Krafft-Ebing imagined homosexuality as a variation of the normal by generalizing a gay male experience. He also recorded the obstreperous cases of homosexual women based largely inside the clinic but by and large ignored this evidence. Freud inextricably bound homosexuality to normality (and vice versa) by redefining homosexuals as a group to include individuals with unconscious same-sex desire. Doing so allowed him to conceptualize the fear of homosexuality as crucial in the formation of neurosis and psychosis, and at the same time put him at odds with relevant early identity politics.

The discussion will be opened on the implications and differences for the analysis of pedophilia used as an obsessive symptomatic idea with possibilities of passing into the act, and perversion itself.An attempt is made to convey the evolution of a clinical case by working on this idea with the patient as a compromise solution between the desire and the need for social punishment. A clinical fragment is used in order to analyze a psychopathological question and delve into the uniqueness of the case without trying to construct a generalization. Additionally, questions will be opened about how enigmatic perversion is for psychoanalysis, establishing bridges to reflect on what connects and what separates the individual from that choice and what would be the conditions of possibility in their ability to cancel it.

The epigraph in Knafo and Lo Bosco's book, a quote from Kant, succinctly describes perversion as a tendency towards the crooked: “Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing ent...

The written work hereby presented is the result of cognitive development within the course of study for the Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology subject area of the Faculty of Psychology of the UNR corresponding to thematic unit III “The perverse struc-ture and the pere-versions”. Based on one of the pillar texts, “A Child is Being Beaten,” we interrogate the drive (Trieb) and ghosting articulation, that is, the perverse-polymorphous sexuality and the remaining enigmas regarding perversion as a structure. As a result of reading the text we will place the ghost as a support of desire underlining the enjoyment it implies and the possible fates in its articulation your articulation to the drive (Trieb). We will propose the reading of the “Sixth case” that Freud does not explicitly name, but we can read and conjecture from a text by Ana Freud.

This article offers a critical examination of the contemporary imperative to ‘trust science’ from the point of view of Lacanian psychoanalysis. It begins by putting contemporary scientific research...

Este texto é resultado do trabalho de duas conferências proferidas no Fórum do Campo Lacaniano de Fortaleza, em fevereiro de 2019, na ocasião de abertura dos seminários sobre topologia. No primeiro momento, Bernard Nominé falou sobre o encontro de Lacan com o nó borromeano e suas repercussões na psicanálise, apontando questões teóricas antes mal-entendidas que puderam ser reenlaçadas ao longo de sua prática. Depois, o autor se deteve à relação do nó borromeano com a escrita da clínica, lembrando-nos que nossas categorias de neurose, psicose e perversão muitas vezes não são suficientes para extrair a lógica de determinados casos. Assim, apresenta-se a necessidade de se conhecer o manejo da cadeia borromeana, suas principais falhas, consequências e reparações possíveis. Para tanto, é preciso ir adiante naquilo que o autor denomina de “solfejo do nó”.

A conceptual evolution is traceable from early modern classifications of libido nefanda (execrable lust) to early nineteenth-century allusions to ‘perversion of the sexual instinct’, via pluralizing notions of coitus nefandus/sodomiticus in Martin Schurig’s work, and of sodomia impropria in seventeenth- through late eighteenth-century legal medicine. Johann Valentin Müller’s early breakdown of various unnatural penchants seemingly inspired similar lists in works by Johann Christoph Fahner and Johann Josef Bernt, and ultimately Heinrich Kaan. This allows an ante-dating of the ‘specification of the perverted’ (Foucault) often located in the late nineteenth century, and appreciation of pygmalionism and necrophilia as instances of ‘perverted sexual instinct’. In this light, Kaan’s early psychopathia sexualis was less innovative and more ambivalent than previously thought.

In a letter to Carl Jung in 1902, Sigmund Freud wrote, “the cure is effected by love.” Indeed, I believe, like Freud, that every therapy is a love relationship of a sort and that the analytic work ...

Resumo Ainda que de modo introdutório, dizemos que existe um sujeito, o perverso, no interior da filosofia de Deleuze. Mais, que é tornando-se esse sujeito, fazendo do perverso um filósofo, que Deleuze dá início à sua filosofia, em Diferença e repetição e na Lógica do sentido. Ou seja, que existindo um devir-perverso do próprio Deleuze, esse devir condiciona uma abordagem à relação do seu pensamento com o tema da perversão, e isto por ser justamente a criação desse heterónimo, o perverso, que está na origem da sua filosofia. Abstract Even if only schematically, we say there is a subject, the pervert, in Deleuze’s philosophy. More, that it is by becoming this subject, making the pervert a philosopher, that Deleuze brings about the beginning of his own philosophy in Difference and Repetition and The Logic of Sense. In other words, that there is such a thing as Deleuze’s very own becoming-pervert, being this becoming which conditions an understanding of the relation of his thinking with the question of perversion precisely because it is this heteronym, the pervert, who stands at the origin of his philosophy.

This article argues for a Freudian theory of internal emotion, which is best characterised as key “safety valves of the psyche”. After briefly clarifying some of Freud’s metapsychology, I present an account regarding the origin of (self-)censorship and morality as internalised aggression. I then show how this conception expands and can be detailed through a defence of a hydraulic model of the psyche that has specific “safety valves” of disgust, shame, and pity constantly counteracting specific sets of Freudian drives. This model is important for explicating Freud’s crucial concept of sublimation, which continues to have key therapeutic and normative relevance today, which I show through the case of jokes. I finish with the argument that largely happy, productive lives can be seen as in a dynamic between the release of too much (perversion) and too little (neurosis) psychical pressure through these mechanisms.

Osnovni je cilj rada interpretacija sadomazohizma kao relevantne seksualnosti i psihoseksualnog, socijalno - filozofskog i kulturnog fenomena multidisciplinarnim aspektima psihoanalize i socijalne filozofije s težištem na individualnom i društvenom shvaćanju i filozofskoj analizi sadomazohizmate bitnim dilemama o njihovom razumijevanju i adekvatnom pozicioniranju sadizma i mazohizma u domeni seksualnosti. Kao polazište za elaboraciju teorija sadomazohističke seksualnosti izložila sam povijesni pregled pojma perverzije te interpretacija sadomazohizma u najranijoj psihonalizi Richarda von Krafft - Ebinga i Sigmunda Freuda. Uslijedit će interpretacija seksualnosti i sadomazohističkih odnosa teorijom konceptualno - kategorijalnog sustava Jacquesa Lacana, kao najrelevantnijom za modernu i suvremenu psihoanalitičku filozofiju zbog njegovog drugačijeg pristupa psihoanalizi i razumijevanju seksualnosti i sadomazohizma. Nastojala sam kritički promisliti sadomazohizam kao specifičnu seksualnost u svojoj praksi, no jednaku svakoj drugoj prema egalitaritarnom principu slobode izbora te filozofskom elaboracijom njene pozicije u kontekstu suvremenih teorija seksualnosti. Centralne originalne teze su interpretacije ontologije i fenomenologije sadomazohizma u antropologijskoj filozofiji seksualnosti Georgesa Bataillea, njegove naturalističke konceptualizacije kao „nasilne transgresije“, a istovremeno erotskog, senzualnog i ritualnog, transcendirajući seksualnost Pozicija sadomazohističke seksualnosti u društvenom kontekstu prikazana je historijsko – filozofskim pristupom odnosa moći u misli Michela Foucaulta, s naglaskom na njegovu izuzetnu, detaljnu i vjerojatno najprecizniju analizu razvoja misli i znanosti o seksualnosti. Filozofsko tumačenje Freuda Herberta Marcusea od izrazite je važnosti za objašnjenje refleksije psihičkog u društvenom stanju te široke problematike suvremenog društva i pojedinca kao produkta represivne civilizacije te ideje kao otvorene mogućnosti ozbiljenja nerepresivnog no produktivnog društva. Bitan dio rada utemeljen je na teorijama društva i seksualnosti u Foucaultovoj i Deleuzevoj filozofijii, veoma različitoj i snažno kritički suprotstavljenoj psihoanalitičkim pristupima – historijske i „antihumanističke“ analize društvene dinamike koja oblikuju pojedince uvjetujući njihovo ponašanje. Suvremenim koncepcijama i teorijama sadomazohizma, koje su bile najizraženije u SAD-u od 1990 - ih do danas, razjašnjen je i protumačen osnovne jezični registar BDSM-a, te prikazane prakse ove seksualnosti, koja je, društvenim razvojem, evolvirala od "istinskog" sadomazohizma do popularizacije u mainstream kulturu konzumerističkog društva. Brojni suvremeni teoretičari sociologije i psihologije, uključujući i psihoterapeute zastupaju pozitivan stav prema sadomahizmu te će biti suprostavljeni „teškim“ argumentima“ radikalnih feminističkih autorica protiv ove seksualne prakse, no važno je napomenuti da su renomirane feminističke teoretičarke zauzele afirmativan stav prema S/M -u i kao praktikantice. Intencija rada je, nakon filozofskog pregleda fenomena sadomazohizma u teoriji i praksi, tumačenje brojnih teza o fenomenu sadomazohizma te originalna interpretacija i promišljanje još uvijek prisutnih upitnih i problematičnih shvaćanja sadomazohizma - kao poremećaja, perverzije, nasilja, nenormalne seksualnosti odnosno devijacije. Inovativne interpretacije relevantne literature te mojih osobnih teza vezanih za ontologiju i epistemologiju individuuma, zajednice i društvene cjeline konstituirat će jedinstvenu opoziciju „psihopatologizaciji" sadomazohističke seksualnosti u društvu i individualnoj psihološkoj sferi fenomena sadomazohizma koji iz sociološke, filozofske i psihološke perspektive ima iznimnu ulogu u suvremenom društvu i kulturi. The general aim of the thesis is an interpretation of sadomasochism as a relevant sexuality and a psycho - sexual, socio - philosophical and cultural phenomenon, developed by multidisciplinary aspects of psychoanalysis and social philosophy with the focus on the philosophical analysis of the individual and social understanding of sadomasochism and the essential dilemmas about its intelligibility and adequate positioning of sadism and masochism in the domain of sexuality. I have made the effort of critically rethinking sadomasochism as a specific sexuality in its practice, but equal to every other sexual orientation according to the principle of egalitarian freedom of choice and philosophical elaboration of its position in the context of contemporary theories of sexuality. As a starting point for understanding the theories of sadomasochistic sexuality, a historical background of the concept of perversion and interpretations of sadomasochism is presented through a detailed overview and analysis of the earliest psychoanalysis of Richard von Krafft - Ebing and Sigmund Freud. The interpretation of sexuality and sadomasochistic relationships in the postpsychoanalytical theory of Jacques Lacan is elaborated as the most relevant for the contemporary psychoanalytical philosophy and understanding of sexuality. Sadomasochism is explained in terms of Lacan's conceptually - categorial system, as a special and unique relationship of signifiers, intermediated by desire described as the relationship of the other (objet petit a) and the Other (objet grande Autre). Lacan's structurally - categorial system of subjects, objects and indefinite different possibilities of relationships between individuals and signifiers reveals their both conscious and unconscious desires and therefore is an excellent method of studying and theoretizing sadomasochistic sexuality and interactions in all their varieties and development of the Symbolic, Imaginary and the Real order. The central original theses are interpretations of ontology and phenomenology in anthropological philosophy of sexuality of George Bataille and his naturalist conceptualization of sexuaity as a „violent transgression“, and at the same time erotic and sensual, spiritual and ritual, transcendental phenomenon. Bataille's theory of the essential, inevitable unity of sexuality and violence is strongly antropologically founded, relying on vivid depictions of ancient sexual ritual in comparison with contempory human sexual experience. According to Bataille, violence and sexuality, as primal animal insticts and human drives, are inseparable and therefore sadomasochism can be understood as a necessary trangression, transcending all taboos and cultural norms. His exquisite theses on sexuality, based on descriptions of the unity of the physical and the psychological dimensional and explaining the very origin of sadomasochism, are an excellent theoretical framework for the understanding the practice of sadomasochistic sexuality as an equilibrium of the violent, cruel, profane with the sacrificial, ritual and sacred, transcending into the domain of the spiritual. Bataille's works and thought on sexuality are interpreted as the basis for the ontology of sadomasochism, since transcendentality is the main characteristic of the state of mind caused by intense and unique sensations of the masochistic experience. Phenomenology of masochism, as the primary and far more complexed sexual predisposition and orientatation than sadism, is best expressed in the thought of Gilles Deleuze, centrally focused and concentrated on distingishing and dividing masochism and sadism into two different entities and forms of existence. Deleuze's theory of masochism is of great relevance, since he strictly excludes masochism from sadism, as two separate worlds, with his references on Leopold Sacher - Masoch and his notion of masochism as supersensuality. According to Deleuze, masochism is a world of its own, and the masochistic individual has a unique set of mind, psyche and desires for physical pain, opposite to a sadist, which ontologically differenciates masochists from sadist. Jean - Luc Nancy's philosophy of the body is of great significance for understanding sadomasochistic sexuality, since he positioned the body as the central part of the individual's person, selfhood and the realization of sexual identity. As I have demonstrated, he has developed a conceptual paradigm in which myself is the body and his term „corpus ego“ stands for the unity of body, self and mind. The unity of body, self and mind and the idea of the body as the self are followed by his understanding of physical sensations as life forces, which are the essential components of sadomasochistic sexuality and lifestyle. Jean Baudrillard's analysis of the postfuturist and postsexual society and his brilliant depictions of human drives for violent sexuality in comparison with the perception of reality or its simulation plays an extremely important role in explaining the contemporary technological society and specific sexual practices. Baudrillard has reformulated some of the major Lacan's terms and concept in his own, original and different interpretation of sexuality and violence in terms of seduction, pornography and sexual pleasure by referring to manifestations of extreme sexuality in voyeurism, implying various sadomasochistic practices, reaching the limitless hyperreality of taking pleasure in participating severe accidents and acts of brutality as a response to the exposition and submission to mechanisms of technology. Herbert Marcuse's philosophical interpretation of Freud is of extreme importance for the explanation of the reflexion of the physical in the social state and the broad problematics of contemporary society and the individual as a product of repressive civilization and repressed sexuality and the idea of an open possibility of realization of an non – repressive, but productive society of the pleasure principle. The essential part of the thesis is based upon the theories of the society and sexuality in Foucault's and Gilles Deleuze's philosophy, very different and highly critically opposed psychoanalitical approaches - a historical and „antihumanist“ analysis of social dynamics which shape individuals by conditioning their behaviour. The position of sadomasochist sexuality in the social context has been demonstrated by the historically - philosophical theory of power relations in the thought of Michel Foucault with an emphasis on his exquisite, detailed and probably most precise analysis of development of thought and science of sexuality. I have applied Foucault's theses on social power relations on the hermeneutics of sadomasochistic sexuality, since his main focus was the historical knowledge of sexuality, dating from ancient Greece, its practices and a specific ethics. Foucault's theory of sexuality was established precisely on societies buit upon the essential relation of power and knowledge which made sexuality a political and scientific issue, including the practice of sadomasochism as the best manifestation of paradoxical power relations, the one of equal individual, both wielding power and submitting to powerlessness, a realtionship beyond power, in search of knowledge through sexual experience and liberation. Sexuality, as an ultimate form of liberation, is presented with an emphasis on sadomasochistic sexuality as the ultimate form of interpersonal power exchange in the social context of sadomadochistic communities and subcultures and the reception of such practices by the traditional mainstream society. The final conclusion of Foucault's theses on sexuality is an interpretation of power relations in radical sadomasochistic relationships from the socio - philosophical, political, but also psychological perspective, along with the ethics of sadomasochism as a prescribed conduct regarding safety and consensuality. Contemporary theories and conceptions od sadomasochism, most expressed in the USA from 1990s to the present day have explained and interpreted the basic linguistic register of BDSM and represented the essential practices of this sexuality, which has, by social development, evolved from „true“ sadomasochism to populizarization and mainstream culture of the postcapitalist consumerist society. Numerous contemporary sociology and physchology theoreticians, including psychotherapists represent a positive attitude towards sadomasochism and shall be confronted with „heavy“ arguments of radical feminist authors against this sexual practice, but it is important to note that the renowned feminist theoreticians have taken the affirmative attitude towards S/M as practioners themselves. The intention of the thesis, after a philosophical overview of the phenomenon of sadomasochism in theory and practice, is an original interpretation and rethinking of various theories and the still present dubious and problematic understandings of sadomasochistic sexuality - as a psychopathological disorder, perversion, violence, abnormal sexuality or deviation, which should be disregarded and discarded as obsolete misinterpretations. Innovative interpretations of the relevant literature and my own personally developed theses in ontology and epistemology of the individual, community and the social totality shall constitute a unique opposition to the psychopatologization of sadomasochist sexuality in the social and the individual psychological sphere of the phenomenon of sadomasochism which, from the socio - philosophical and psychological perspective, has an immense role in contemporary society and culture.

Physicality in Olga Tokarchuk’s novel is considered from the philosophical aspect as one of two “extreme points”, a fundamental principle, a mystery, a means for the cognition of global principles. The author investigates such philosophic concepts, as the category of non-classical aesthetics with a view of the legalisation of the phenomenon of perversion, the affect, the death, the age-old idea of correspondence between the macrocosmos and physical microcosmos, the baroque contrast of the spiritual and the physical; the traditions of the Christian spiritual basis and the foolishness of Christ; the mythological view of the body. Physicality becomes the basis for the author’s worldview presented as sharply contrasting, disharmonious, quantal. It is argued that the chosen genre serves to corroborate the above reasoning. The novel consists of short stories, travel notes, diary sketch-notes. Two strategies are distinguished: counterposition and combination of the sensual and the physical. The characters are seen as ideologists in understanding the worldview, as well as the categories of physicality. The novel gets across a provocative postmodern message. The signs of physicality code the non-correspondence culture sphere. The novel reflects the specific features of a transitive artistic vision.

El presente artículo busca establecer cuáles son los aportes de Sigmund Freud al estudio de las perversiones, problematizando que, a más de un siglo de existencia del psicoanálisis, con una vasta producción teórica y trabajo clínico que brindan nuevos elementos para la comprensión del acto y el sujeto perversos, la palabra “perversión” continúa teniendo múltiples significados y los antiguos usos de la religión al respecto, continúan vigentes en el plano social y científico. Abstract: This paper seeks to establish the contributions of Sigmund Freud to the study of perversions. Taking into account that, more than a century after the existence of psychoanalysis, with a vast theoretical production and clinical work that provide new elements for the understanding of the act and the perverse subject, the word "perversion" continues to have multiple meanings and the old uses of religion in this regard, continue being valid in the social and scientific plane.

The works of Reinhold Niebuhr contain invaluable examples of how Christian resources can be fruitfully exploited to address urgent economic and political issues. The ideas of sin and continuous redemption, which arguably belong to the core of the Christian faith, are creatively translated by Niebuhr, so that they can be included in public debates and interdisciplinary dialogues. In this article, his conception of sin as the perversion of the will-to-live into the will-to-power is endorsed. Its counterforce, it is argued, is human love infused with divine love. Love is, therefore, not a simple possibility, which can be applied to our economic and political problems. Instead, it is the impossible possibility, the ultimate and critical perspective from which prevailing forms of justice and philanthropy are judged. Through the public theology of Niebuhr, the ideal of love becomes a universally valid alternative to the rationalist and naturalist approaches to human morality.

Based on his reading of Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, Deleuze claims that one aspect of masochism is the repudiation of the father. Following this, many critics argue for a subversive nature in perversion, and misperceive the dynamics of sadism and masochism. A Lacanian reading of an experientially grounded representation of BDSM, as conveyed in the stories of Califia, allows us to dispel the Deleuzean misunderstanding of perversion and bypass a two-dimensional portrayal of the power relation between sadists and masochists. As explicated through Lacan and Califia, an understanding of BDSM practice also helps to reveal the underlying erotic structure of forms of contemporary politics such as fundamentalism and liberalism. To understand BDSM in Califia’s story, the Lacanian imaginary/real/symbolic triad is employed, serving first as a framework to dispel the Deleuzean miscomprehension of masochism, and then as a way to fully grasp Califia’s perverted world.

This chapter comprises two parts. First, a discussion on the relationship between fetishism and ideology that will look in more depth at the ideas raised earlier in the book. Second, given that fetishism is not a self-contained concept within Freud’s work but exists in dialogue with several other formulations, to develop a theory of fetishism relevant to this book it is necessary to examine other areas. Therefore, this chapter covers Freud’s formulations of perversion, castration, phallus, and narcissism.

What are the fundamental ideas of the doctrine that we have come to know as Bolshevism? What is it based on?

They are by far the most persecuted, tortured, and slaughtered terrestrial vertebrate on the planet. Humans, for the most part, despise chickens, eating them without the slightest pause. This may be the most historically documented facet of the madness and perversion of our species, who have singled out and killed nearly one trillion chickens in the past 40–50 years. What this says about chickens and their perdurable forgiveness is nothing less than transcendent, spiritual. What it must say about ourselves is something else entirely.

This chapter takes up the second Kantian question, ‘What should we do?’. This ethical question was approached by Lacan in Seminar VII and his ecrit ‘Kant avec Sade’, in order to interrogate the Sadean foundations of the Kantian moral law. I will ask how AI challenges our conception of ethics, and how psychoanalysis helps us to interrogate some of the most obscure facets of enjoyment and the law. Beginning with a discussion of Sylvere Lotringer’s (1988) book Over-exposed: Perverting Perversions and an inquiry into the use of virtual reality and simulation for the treatment of sexual perversion and sex criminals, we then discuss the notion of Patipolitical governance in relation to the undead body of the Sexbot and Lacan’s various definitions of death. We will then engage with a reading of Rupert Sanders’ film Ghost in the Shell in order to speculate on the ethical status of the embodied AI.

This article argues that ἡμεροσκόπος at Lys. 849 constitutes a pun based on iotacism, a well-known feature of female speech in fifth-century Athens aptly illustrated by Socrates in Plato's Cratylus. By describing herself as ἡμεροσκόπος ‘day watch’ pronounced as ἱμεροσκόπος ‘lust watch’, Lysistrata perverts the military term associated with the occupation-plot to a sexually charged word associated with the strike-plot. Its use would be very appropriate in a scene in which the φαλληφόρια of the men (not just Cinesias’ but later on also the Spartan herald's and the Spartan and Athenian delegates’) become the subject of a φαλλοσκοπία by the women (not just Lysistrata but later on also the chorus of women) and perforce also by the onlooking audience. Additional contemporary evidence from orthographic mistakes made by schoolboys suggests that Athenian elite women of the late fifth century were the avant-garde of socially prestigious innovations such as iotacism, which would definitively catch on with the male population in the fourth century and change the face of Greek phonology forever.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Imp of the Perverse” (1845), the narrator/protagonist gives us his account of how he commits a murder, but he does not provide a fully defined, convincing reason for his vile action. He speaks like a commonsensical man when he philosophizes on “perversity” in a clinically distanced tone of voice. He makes inferences and highlights the implications concerning perversity. With the same tone of voice, he also gives the readers a cold-blooded account of how he killed an old man. The insanity in the act and the way he narrates it are complicated enough for us to make sense of his situation. However, to make the issue more complicated, he gives himself away and is imprisoned to be hanged. The co-existence of these triangular dynamics has triggered a zealous hermeneutic process by/for the critics. However, none of these readings can exhaust the narrative and hermeneutical implications embodied in the story. Each of them can cover some aspects of the narrative while leaving some others untouched like the psychodynamics of the main character. In that sense, this essay attempts to make a psychoanalytic interpretation of the story by giving a Lacanian hearing to it as it might offer an explanation for certain details which otherwise remain as a rupture like the narrator’s drive to give himself away or his impulsive act of killing the old man. Using the Lacanian concepts of the ideal ego and the ego ideal, jouissance, perversity, the imaginary, and the symbolic as the conceptual backcloth, this essay claims that Poe fictionalizes Lacanian psychoanalytic concept of perversity, which refers to the partial accession to castration, in “The Imp of the Perverse”., Edgar Allan Poe’nun “Zıtlık Şeytanı” (“The Imp of the Perverse”) hikâyesinde, anlatıcı/ana karakter, bize bir cinayeti nasıl işlediğini anlatır ancak bu menfur eyleminin ardındaki nedeni tam olarak tanımlamaz ve ikna edici bir neden sunmaz. Klinik olarak mesafeli bir tonla “perversiyon” üzerine felsefe yaptığında sağduyulu bir kişiymiş gibi konuşur; perversiyon ile ilgili çeşitli çıkarımlarda bulunur ve bunu örneklerle açıklar. Daha sonra benzer tonla yaşlı bir adamı nasıl öldürdüğünü de okuyucuya soğukkanlılıkla anlatır. Anlatıcının gerçekleştirdiği eylemdeki çılgınlık ve bunu anlatış şekli, onun durumunu anlamamız için oldukça karmaşıktır. Anlatıcının kendini ele vermesi ve asılmak üzere hapsedilmesi meselenin okuyucu için daha karmaşık hale gelmesine sebep olur. Bu üçgen dinamiğin bir arada bulunması eleştirmenler açısından zahmetli bir hermenötik süreci tetiklemiştir. Fakat, bu okumaların hiçbiri, hikâyede yer alan anlatısal ve hermenötik çıkarımları tüketememiştir. Çalışmaların her biri anlatının bazı yönlerini ele alabilmiş ve kahramanın psikodinamiği gibi bazı konular derinlemesine incelenmemiştir. Bu bağlamda makale, hikâyenin kahramanı Lacancı psikanalitik yaklaşımla analiz etmeye çalışmaktadır. Bu yaklaşım bizim belirli ayrıntıları daha iyi anlamlandırmamıza katkı sağlar, aksi takdirde anlatıcının teslim olma güdüsü ya da yaşlı adamı öldürmek gibi dürtüsel eylemi okuyucuda bir muamma olarak kalır. İdeal-ego, ego-ideal, zevk, perversiyon, imgesel ve sembolik gibi Lacancı kavramlarını kavramsal arka plan olarak kullanan bu makale Poe’nun “Zıtlık Şeytanı” başlıklı hikâyesinde Lacancı anlamda kısmi kastrasyona denk düşen perversiyon kavramını kurgusallaştırdığını iddia eder.

This chapter proposes to approach the Tunisian Revolution psychoanalytically. Rather than studying the revolution in a more conventional way, by examining only its socioeconomic and political ingredients, causes, and impacts, the chapter probes its underlying politics of desire — how subjects can follow the master's Law, despite misgivings about it (a politics of perversion), or choose instead to resist and transgress it, refusing to compromise on their desire for change (a politics of hysteria). Indeed, the “Jasmine Revolution” saw the overthrow of Ben Ali's despotic rule by broad-based social protest. But while the country subsequently witnessed the establishment of liberal democracy, the two main political forces (the liberal Nidaa Tounes and the Islamic Ennahda) have ended up pursuing many of the same socioeconomic policies of Ben Ali, which have in turn been met with popular opposition. The chapter then compares the Tunisian to the Egyptian revolution, reflecting on the broader psychoanalytic possibilities and perils of popular uprisings, including the risk that a politics of hysteria may transform into a politics of perversion.

This article proposes that Deleuze’s psychoanalytically inspired theory of humour and irony provides an underappreciated way to theorize acts of resistance that adopt a structurally perverse position towards a law or authority. In his books Coldness and Cruelty and Difference and Repetition, Deleuze explains that the law is susceptible to two kinds of subversive procedure. The first, which he calls irony and which he aligns with sadism, reveals a gap between the law and its principles. The second, which he calls humour and which he aligns with masochism, exposes a gap between the law’s interdictions and their consequences. For Deleuze, humour and irony harbour the potential to overturn or overthrow the law. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and contemporary examples – alt-right ‘free speech’ demonstrations in the United States and protests surrounding Russia’ s 2012 parliamentary elections – the article argues that Deleuze overstates the transformative potential of perversion. Nevertheless, his account remains useful for showing the circuitous routes that some subjects take to enjoy their position within the law. Given the global rise in right-wing authoritarianism in recent years, this may prove to be an important insight.

This article aims to demonstrate how perversion, as a subject, activates investigation. As a starting point, it explores Freud’s idea surrounding fetishism as a paradigm of itself; a necessary interval between neurosis and psychosis. This analysis is followed by a presentation of various notions developed by Lacan in his teachings. Subsequently, the article analyzes Haneke’s 2001 film “The piano teacher”, here considered as a case of substitute perversion that adds to the few documented cases of this nature. The movie contributes elements that allow to think about and further develop the notion of substitute perversion in psychosis. In it, “the teacher” demonstrates the separation between love, desire, juissance and what Lacan calls “false hole” through borromean rings. Lastly, questions are posed regarding perversion; organized by answers, opposite the two aforementioned structures. Resumo: O artigo ocupa-se de mostrar como a perversão é uma temática que ativa a pesquisa. Explora, inicialmente, a ideia de Freud sobre o fetichismo como paradigma desse operador clínico, intervalo necessário entre a neurose e a psicose. Depois apresenta noções formuladas por Lacan em seus ensinamentos. Examina, posteriormente, o filme A professora de piano, de Haneke (2001), considerando-o material que contribui diante da escassez de casos sobre perversão. Encontra no filme elementos para pensar e indagar a suplência perversa na psicose. A professora ensina a propósito da amarração do nó borromeano entre amor, desejo, gozo e do estabelecimento do que Lacan chama: “falso furo”. O artigo, finalmente, formula questões sobre essa estrutura clínica que, diferentemente das outras duas, se organiza não em certezas, mas adiantando respostas.

In Chaps. 2 and 3 I showed how a non-humanist Nietzschean existentialism is possible. However, this does not necessarily imply anything about the status of other figures or modes of existentialist thought. In particular, it does not show that phenomenological existentialism is not still wedded to the idea of a ‘present’ humanist subject. Consequently, it is to refute this claim, and to provide a broader justification for, and content to, a non-humanist existentialism, that I look to Sartre’s phenomenology. Specifically, in my next three chapters, I explore how the human can be understood as a perversion of ‘world’ or ‘being’ there. And I do this, in Chap. 4, by arguing that phenomenology does not actually reveal an independent inner domain of subjectivity. Rather, looking at The Transcendence of the Ego and Being and Nothingness, I show that what it discloses is the human as in the world. It discloses the human as never given except as a relation to world. And the rest of this chapter elaborates on the nature of this relation, seeing it as defined by negation and real non-being. Further, I argue that this non-being can be understood by viewing it as a perverse modification of being. Thus, this chapter concludes that the human as relation to the world implies the human as perversion of the world.

Observing the apparently anomalous retention of pre-capitalist forms amid rapid economic transformation, Marxists in early 20th-century Japan grappled with the theoretical challenges posed by a set of practices that did not adhere to the presumed teleology of capitalist development. In response, they proposed a sophisticated treatment of nationalism as an essential (but inherently temporary) stabilizing feature of capitalism, requiring constant reinvention as part of capitalism's fundamentally unstable and contradictory growth process. The validity of this treatment can be witnessed today with respect to populist backlashes in Europe and North America, and strident nationalist and even genocidal state policies in South Asia, amid a general stalling of the neoliberal globalization project that has increasingly been seen to fail in the unfolding aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007–2009.

In the Zhuangzi, inherent and spontaneous wisdom, the “real” wisdom associated with unity with the Dao, is promoted in opposition to wisdom consciously applied, the recorded “wisdom of the sages.” Guo Xiang expands on this dichotomy by distinguishing between the original spontaneous acts of the sages and the “footprints” or “impressions” so made: the conventional worldly view mistakes such “footprints” as reliable recordings of formulas for behavior—especially rulership—but this, Guo Xiang tells us, is all wrong and inevitably leads to the perversion of human nature and the corruption of government, for such “wisdom” is in violation of the Dao. This spontaneous-formulaic distinction lies at the heart of both the Zhuangzi and Guo’s commentary, and Guo’s promotion of the sage-ruler in Daoist terms was designed to serve as a catalyst for the regeneration of self and society and the foundation of a worldly utopia. Readily apparent throughout his commentary to the Zhuangzi, this view is especially prominent in Guo Xiang’s Essentials of the Analects, which now exists only in fragments, all of which comment on passages in Analects, part 2: Conduct Government. This chapter translates and analyses all these passages as further evidence of Guo’s reading the Zhuangzi as he does the Confucian Analects—as a political treatise.

This chapter gives concrete form to the sketch for a possible radical existentialism outlined in the introduction. Specifically, it does this via the philosophy of Nietzsche. This is accomplished first by looking at the connection between authenticity and the will-to-power in his thought. I show how an understanding of authenticity as the creation of a unique unifying perspective at the same time discloses the human being as nothing other than will-to-power. And this entails the rejection of the humanist subject. However, the rest of the chapter then deals with the problem following from this. Namely, this is the problem of maintaining a distinct ontological status for the human being. I accomplish this by exploring the internalisation of instinct occurring as a result of the early human’s confinement within the state. It is seen how this internalisation represents a perversion of the animal will-to-power. And this, it is argued, simultaneously gives birth to the distinct human power to create values. Thus I show how the human being proper is fundamentally constituted, and distinguished, as the perversion of the will-to-power. In this way a distinct non-humanist meaning is possible for the human. So too therefore, it is shown, is it possible to have a Nietzschean existentialist ‘return to the human’ that nonetheless avoids humanism.

O artigo analisa as condições de formação do conceito psiquiátrico de “perversão” e mais especificamente a maneira como, a partir dos anos 1820, se constrói uma oposição fundamental e estruturante entre “perversão” e “perversidade” que se evidencia tanto no campo jurídico como no médico-legal. Compreender esse jogo de oposição e de poder entre ambos os conceitos permite entender alguns conflitos profissionais entre médicos e juristas, mas também algumas disputas políticas. The article analyzes the conditions of formation of the psychiatric concept of “perversion” and, more specifically, the way in which, from the 1820s, a fundamental structuring opposition between “perversion” and “perversity” in juridical and medical-legal fields was constructed. Understanding this game of opposition and power between both concepts allows assimilating some professional conflicts between doctors and jurists, as well as some political disputes.

The concept of the ‘island’ constitutes a unique theme in Deleuze's thought: desert islands and perversion, continental islands and isolated islands, the connection between the emergence of life and orogeny, the relationship between imagination and islands (we can see these themes not only in the articles of Desert Islands and in the appendix of The Logic of Sense on Michel Tournier, but also in Difference and Repetition), and the sea as a rhizome. To think from this point of view on Japan, it is neither an isolated island nor an oceanic island in Deleuze's sense. Rather, it is a place where a unique stratum of thought has accumulated like a multilayered plateau. Japan has often been portrayed as a malignant kind of rhizome, as an oriental land, a land of animism. However, the Japanese islands, as part of the Pacific Rim island arc, and, on the other hand, as a place which bears the forces from the continent, can also be depicted as a manifold location, bearing the rhizome called the sea in a unique way. Not only does it have only a virtual signifier = signifiant of One-ness, but it can also be said to hold multiple strata of signifiers = signifiants within its arc between the continent and ocean. My aim in this paper is to explicate this place called ‘Japan’ as a case study of what Deleuze calls geophilosophy in his last book with Guattari, What is Philosophy?

The title of Dagmar Herzog's exciting new book,Cold War Freud: Psychoanalysis in an Age of Catastrophes, immediately raises a series of questions. If we understand the Cold War as a particular moment in history ranging from the 1940s to the 1980s, but also as a time of intense politicization, we might wonder about the juxtaposition of “Cold War” and “Freud”—the juxtaposition of history and politics with psychoanalysis. When Freud invented psychoanalysis at the end of the nineteenth century, his primary motivation was to treat individuals in their idiosyncrasy through the “talking cure” and the process of transference with the analyst. In that sense, psychoanalysis, at least as Freud exposed it in his initial case studies, had little to say about collective phenomena such as politics. Furthermore, in his more theoretical writings, one of Freud's explicit goals was to develop a theory of subjectivity that went beyond historical specificity. Of course, social and familial configurations affected the psyche in distinctive ways, but neurosis, psychosis, and perversion were subjectivestructuresrather than historical developments. Freud's main concepts—whether it be the unconscious, the drives, desire, the Oedipus complex—characterized human subjectivity in general. They pointed to the uniqueness of the self as opposed to the animal who was ultimately governed by nature, biology, and instincts. In other words, at first glance, Freudian psychoanalysis was not meant to be historical or political.

Recent attempts to brand US President Donald J. Trump as a psychotic or fascist have failed because such labels do not capture the double character of his appeal. In this essay, I argue Jacques Lac...

Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, who would have turned 90 this year, had a passion for truth that placed her work at the very heart of psychoanalysis. Never leaving the field of Freudian analysis she exp...