Capitalism and the New Political Unconscious
A Philosophy of Immanence

Edited by Dr Fabio Vighi,Professor Riccardo Panattoni

ISBN13: 9781350240292

Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

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Published: 31/10/2024

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Description
Taking seriously Jacques Lacan’s claim that ‘the unconscious is politics’, this volume proposes a new understanding of political power, interrogating the assumption that contemporary capitalism functions by tapping into forms of unconscious enjoyment, rather than providing transcendental conditions for the articulation of political meanings and desires. Whether we’re aware of it or not, political communication today targets the audience’s libidinal response through political and institutional language: in policies, speeches, tweets, social media appearances, gestures and images. Yet does this mean that current power structures no longer need symbolic or ideological frameworks? The authors in this volume think not. Far from demonstrating a shift to a post-ideological age, they argue instead that such methods inaugurate an altogether novel approach to political power. Written by leading scholars from around the world, including Roberto Esposito and Slavoj Žižek, each chapter reflects on contemporary power and inspires consideration of new political potentialities, which our focus on politics in transcendental rather than immanent terms has thus far obscured. In so doing, Capitalism and the New Political Unconscious provides an original and forceful exploration of the centrality of both psychoanalytic theory and the philosophy of immanence to an alternative understanding of the political.
Acknowledgements Part I: Institutions 1. On Institutions, Roberto Esposito (University of Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy) 2. For a Clinical Theory of the Institution, Massimo Recalcati (University of Pavia, Italy) 3. Instituting Power, Riccardo Panattoni (University of Verona, Italy) 4. Vox Populi, Vox Dei: On the Vocal Substance of the Present, Federico Leoni (University of Verona, Italy) Part II: Ideology 5. Neo-plebs and Elites in the Global World, Matteo Vegetti (Università della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland) 6. On the Theatricality and Historicity of the Political, Gregor Moder (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) 7. A Critique of Biopolitics, Maurizio Lazzarato (University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France) 8. Profit, Knowledge and Jouissance: Lacan and the Logic of Action, Matteo Bonazzi (University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy) Part III: Capitalism 9. Jansenist Morality and the Compulsion of Capitalism, Samo Tomšic (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany) 10. Matrix Resurrections, or Jouissance as a Political Factor, Slavoj Žižek (Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, UK) 11. The Perfect Crime? Baudrillard, COVID-19, and Capitalist Virulence, Fabio Vighi (University of Cardiff, UK) 12. Capitalism and Law: from Servitude to Freedom, Todd McGowan (Vermont University, USA) Bibliography Index
  • Social & political philosophy
  • Psychoanalytical theory (Freudian psychology)
  • Tertiary Education (US: College)
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