Ontology and Perversion

Reviews / Votes

Why is perversion not simply a social phenomenon but a mode of being? In this remarkable book, Nedoh audaciously stalks a novel ontology that dresses in variegated furs. Lacan's indifferently ferocious superego is juxtaposed to and played against the vitalist simulacra of Deleuze's Masoch and Agamben's Sphinx. Should critique drive with high heels? -- Lorenzo Chiesa, Author of Subjectivity and Otherness and The Not-Two For an ontology to be truly fundamental and absolute, it must account for everything under the sun. Given this, the category of the perverse, with its peculiarities and strangenesses, represents perhaps the greatest challenge to any ontological ambitions. In Ontology and Perversion, Bostjan Nedoh admirably rises to this challenge. He does so through a wonderfully illuminating defense of Lacan's reflections on ontology in relation to the ontologies of Deleuze and Agamben. Nedoh's book makes perversion an unavoidable point of reference for contemporary Continental metaphysics. -- Adrian Johnston, Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy, University of New Mexico