Obsession & politics: A contribution to Lacanian political psychoanalysis

Authors

Duane Rousselle, The Aga Khan University

Document Type

Article

Department

Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Abstract

Abstract

Obsessional politics gives name to what remains unsaid and under-examined within the contemporary political situation. If obsessional politics may be taken to refer to those tendencies within the political field whose symptomatic condition concerns a demand for novelty, and an avoidance of the goal of authentic novelty via the aim of repetition, it may be further assumed that obsessional politics operates according to the trinity of the obsessional neurotic: self-mastery, repetition, and novelty. Taken together, these three rings form the knot of obsessional politics. This article sets out to demonstrate that it is possible to form a post-obsessional knot by way of Jacques Lacan’s concept of “style,” Slavoj Žižek’s “act,” and Alain Badiou’s “event.”

Comments

Issue is not provided by the author/publisher. This work was published before the author joined Aga Khan University.

Publication (Name of Journal)

Springer Link

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1057/pcs.2015.62

Recommended Citation

Rousselle, D. (2016). Obsession & politics: A contribution to Lacanian political psychoanalysis. Springer Link, 21, 348-367.
Available at: https://ecommons.aku.edu/pakistan_fas_fas/17