Understanding Lacan, Understanding Modernism
Published on 2. October 2025
Book
Hardback
288 pages
979-8-7651-1489-6 (ISBN)
Description
Presents the most wide-ranging and in-depth exploration of the influence of modernist art and literature on Jacques Lacan, emphasizing the valences of Lacanian psychoanalysis for interpretations of modernism.
A notorious presence in French intellectual circles throughout the 20th century, Lacan was personal friends with modernists such as Andre Breton and Salvador Dali, and in 1923 was present at the legendary reading of Ulysses at the Shakespeare and Company bookshop by James Joyce, to whom Lacan would devote a year of his seminar in 1975-76. Lacan also contributed to several Surrealist publications, including the famous magazine Minotaure, the inaugural edition of which featured special mention of Lacan's early work on psychosis. However, despite his affinity with early 20th-century modernism, Lacan's name is still more routinely associated with the category of so-called "postmodernism," thus rendering the question of style and periodization somewhat out of focus.
Understanding Lacan, Understanding Modernism asks and responds to a series of questions, including: Is Lacan a modernist or a postmodernist, and what is the difference? How significant was the influence of modernist literature and art on the development of Lacan's ideas? How does our understanding of modernism change when viewed through a Lacanian lens?
The final section identifies key Lacaninan concepts, offering context and a discussion of their usage and relevance in current thought.
A notorious presence in French intellectual circles throughout the 20th century, Lacan was personal friends with modernists such as Andre Breton and Salvador Dali, and in 1923 was present at the legendary reading of Ulysses at the Shakespeare and Company bookshop by James Joyce, to whom Lacan would devote a year of his seminar in 1975-76. Lacan also contributed to several Surrealist publications, including the famous magazine Minotaure, the inaugural edition of which featured special mention of Lacan's early work on psychosis. However, despite his affinity with early 20th-century modernism, Lacan's name is still more routinely associated with the category of so-called "postmodernism," thus rendering the question of style and periodization somewhat out of focus.
Understanding Lacan, Understanding Modernism asks and responds to a series of questions, including: Is Lacan a modernist or a postmodernist, and what is the difference? How significant was the influence of modernist literature and art on the development of Lacan's ideas? How does our understanding of modernism change when viewed through a Lacanian lens?
The final section identifies key Lacaninan concepts, offering context and a discussion of their usage and relevance in current thought.
Reviews / Votes
This fine collection places the enigmatic but indispensable Lacan in his truest context-that of 20th-century modernist art and thought. These essays elucidate what makes Lacan our most sophisticated psychologist: his avant-gardism, his appreciation of the limit situations of human knowledge and existence, and his recognition of paradox as the mark of truth. * Louis Sass, Distinguished Professor, Department of Clinical Psychology, Program in Comparative Literature, Rutgers University, USA, and author of Madness and Modernism and of "Lacan: The Mind of the Modernist" (Continental Philosophy Review) * Waller and Richards have put together an outstanding collection of essays on modernism and modernity in relation to Lacan. Rigorous yet accessible, it is a wide-ranging resource for anyone who strives to better understand the many connections between psychoanalysis, literature, and culture. * Jeffrey R. Di Leo, Professor of English and Philosophy, University of Houston-Victoria, USA *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
566 gr
ISBN-13
979-8-7651-1489-6 (9798765114896)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Thomas Waller | Sinan Richards
Understanding Lacan, Understanding Modernism
E-Book
09/2025
Bloomsbury Academic
€98.99
Available for download
Thomas Waller | Sinan Richards
Understanding Lacan, Understanding Modernism
E-Book
09/2025
Bloomsbury Academic
€98.99
Available for download
Persons
Thomas Waller is a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow at University College Dublin, Ireland. He has published widely in journals such as Textual Practice, Rethinking Marxism, Modern Fiction Studies, and Qui Parle. His monograph Genres of Transition: Literature and Economy in Portuguese-Speaking Southern Africa is forthcoming in 2024. He is an Associate Editor at CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture.
Sinan Richards is a Lecturer in French at University College Cork, Ireland. He is the author of Dialectics of Love in Sartre and Lacan (2023), co-editor, alongside Christina Howells, of Michel Serres: ecology, parasitism and the (post)human, a Special Issue of the Modern & Contemporary France Journal 2024, and Fanon and Lacan: Decolonial Psychoanalysis, alongside Derek Hook (forthcoming). Richards serves as a member of the French Studies editorial board and is a correspondent, associate, and referee at the European Journal of Psychoanalysis. He is currently finalizing a book on Fanon and Lacan.
Sinan Richards is a Lecturer in French at University College Cork, Ireland. He is the author of Dialectics of Love in Sartre and Lacan (2023), co-editor, alongside Christina Howells, of Michel Serres: ecology, parasitism and the (post)human, a Special Issue of the Modern & Contemporary France Journal 2024, and Fanon and Lacan: Decolonial Psychoanalysis, alongside Derek Hook (forthcoming). Richards serves as a member of the French Studies editorial board and is a correspondent, associate, and referee at the European Journal of Psychoanalysis. He is currently finalizing a book on Fanon and Lacan.
Content
Introduction: Misunderstanding Lacan
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland, and Sinan Richards, University College Cork, Ireland
Part I. Conceptualizing Lacan
1. Lacan: Avant-garde psychiatrist
Derek Hook, Duquesne University, USA, and Stijn Vanheule, Ghent University, Belgium
2. Lacan's "New Relay": Salvador Dali and Rene Crevel
Sinan Richards, University College Cork, Ireland
3. Modernity and the Impotence of Discourse
Nadia Bou Ali, American University in Beirut, Lebanon
4. Subjective Destitution as Gift
Elizabeth Stewart, Yeshiva University, USA
5. Psychoanalysis in Search of Itself: Jacques Lacan, T.S. Eliot, and the Seductions of Modernism
Mario Beira, Independent Scholar, and Dany Nobus, Brunel University London, UK
6. From Irma to Joyce to Beckett: On Lacan's Crisis of Representation
Will Greenshields, Zhejiang University, China
7. Lituraterre: How Lacan Literalizes Literature
Jean-Michel Rabate, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Part II. Lacan and Aesthetics
8. Navel-Gazing: Mario de Sa-Carneiro and Confessional Desire
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland
9. Thinking Again about the End: Kafka, Lacan, and Benjamin
Ben Ware, King's College London, UK
10. Bachmann's Malaise and the Language of Hysteria
Jamieson Webster, The New School for Social Research, USA, and Marcus Coelen, ICI Berlin, Germany
11. Ret-Con Jouissance: Salman Rushdie and Postcolonial Modernism
Clint Burnham, Simon Frasier University, Canada
12. The Tripwire of Modernism: Hunger as Function and Ornament
Simon Hajdini, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
13. Fixing Repetition: Lacan, Beckett, and the Exhaustive Obsession of Counting
Arka Chattopadhyay, IIT Gandhinagar, India
14. Queer Company: Henry James and Ghosts
Luke Thurston, Aberystwyth University, UK
Part III. Glossary
15. Cut
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland
16. Ethics
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland
17. Fantasy
Calum Neill, Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland
18. Gaze
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland
19. Letter
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland
20. Object a
Nicholas Stock, University of Birmingham, UK
21. Psychosis
Stijn Vanheule, Ghent University, Belgium
22. R. S. I.
Jean-Michel Rabate, University of Pennsylvania, USA
23. Sexuation
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland
Notes on Contributors
Index
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland, and Sinan Richards, University College Cork, Ireland
Part I. Conceptualizing Lacan
1. Lacan: Avant-garde psychiatrist
Derek Hook, Duquesne University, USA, and Stijn Vanheule, Ghent University, Belgium
2. Lacan's "New Relay": Salvador Dali and Rene Crevel
Sinan Richards, University College Cork, Ireland
3. Modernity and the Impotence of Discourse
Nadia Bou Ali, American University in Beirut, Lebanon
4. Subjective Destitution as Gift
Elizabeth Stewart, Yeshiva University, USA
5. Psychoanalysis in Search of Itself: Jacques Lacan, T.S. Eliot, and the Seductions of Modernism
Mario Beira, Independent Scholar, and Dany Nobus, Brunel University London, UK
6. From Irma to Joyce to Beckett: On Lacan's Crisis of Representation
Will Greenshields, Zhejiang University, China
7. Lituraterre: How Lacan Literalizes Literature
Jean-Michel Rabate, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Part II. Lacan and Aesthetics
8. Navel-Gazing: Mario de Sa-Carneiro and Confessional Desire
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland
9. Thinking Again about the End: Kafka, Lacan, and Benjamin
Ben Ware, King's College London, UK
10. Bachmann's Malaise and the Language of Hysteria
Jamieson Webster, The New School for Social Research, USA, and Marcus Coelen, ICI Berlin, Germany
11. Ret-Con Jouissance: Salman Rushdie and Postcolonial Modernism
Clint Burnham, Simon Frasier University, Canada
12. The Tripwire of Modernism: Hunger as Function and Ornament
Simon Hajdini, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
13. Fixing Repetition: Lacan, Beckett, and the Exhaustive Obsession of Counting
Arka Chattopadhyay, IIT Gandhinagar, India
14. Queer Company: Henry James and Ghosts
Luke Thurston, Aberystwyth University, UK
Part III. Glossary
15. Cut
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland
16. Ethics
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland
17. Fantasy
Calum Neill, Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland
18. Gaze
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland
19. Letter
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland
20. Object a
Nicholas Stock, University of Birmingham, UK
21. Psychosis
Stijn Vanheule, Ghent University, Belgium
22. R. S. I.
Jean-Michel Rabate, University of Pennsylvania, USA
23. Sexuation
Thomas Waller, University College Dublin, Ireland
Notes on Contributors
Index