Lacanian Realism - (Bloomsbury Studies in Continental Philosophy) by Duane Rousselle (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Alain Badiou has claimed that Quentin Meillassoux's book After Finitude (Bloomsbury, 2008) "opened up a new path in the history of philosophy." And so, whether you agree or disagree with the speculative realism movement, it has to be addressed. Lacanian Realism does just that. This book reconstructs Lacanian dogma from the ground up: first, by unearthing a new reading of the Lacanian category of the real; second, by demonstrating the political and cultural ingenuity of Lacan's concept of the real, and by positioning this against the more reductive analyses of the concept by Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, Saul Newman, Todd May, Joan Copjec, Jacques Rancière, and others, and; third, by arguing that the subject exists intimately within the real. Lacanian Realism is an imaginative and timely exploration of the relationship between Lacanian psychoanalysis and contemporary continental philosophy.

Review Quotes

"Rousselle's efforts must be applauded and his originality celebrated, for he has brought together disciplines-philosophy, politics, psychoanalysis-that do not always make for intellectual bedfellows. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty, and professionals." --CHOICE

"Rousselle carefully constructs his argument about a 'first order real' that is distinct from the second order 'symbolic real' for which Lacan is better known. He thereby opens up a number of productive connections with recent developments in continental philosophy, such as the set-theoretical ontology of Alain Badiou and the anti-Correlational 'Speculative Realism' of his student, Quentin Meillassoux. To Rousselle's credit, at the same time to he keeps in view clinical questions relating to psychic structures, principally obsessional neurosis and hysteria." --Colin Wright, Associate Professor of Critical Theory, University of Nottingham, UK

"Lacanian Realism is a timely theoretical intervention into a continental philosophical debate, passionately 'demanding the impossible' by positioning the Lacanian Real within three respective fields, namely, clinical and metaphysical thought, radical political theory, and mathematics... An important contribution to the fields of continental philosophy, Lacanian psychoanalysis, feminism, and posthumanism." --Chyatat Supachalasai, Lecturer in Political Theory and International Relations, Suan Dusit University, Thailand

About the Author

Duane Rousselle is Assistant Professor of Social Theory in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of New Brunswick, Saint John, Canada. He also maintains a private practice in Lacanian psychoanalysis.