Death and Mastery

Psychoanalytic Drive Theory and the Subject of Late Capitalism
Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-0-231-17669-9
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 230 mm, Gewicht: 346 g

Reihe: New Directions in Critical Theory

The first philosophers of the Frankfurt School famously turned to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud to supplement their Marxist analyses of ideological subjectification. Since the collapse of their proposed "marriage of Marx and Freud," psychology and social theory have grown apart to the impoverishment of both. Returning to this union, Benjamin Y. Fong reconstructs the psychoanalytic "foundation stone" of critical theory in an effort to once again think together the possibility of psychic and social transformation.

Drawing on the work of Hans Loewald and Jacques Lacan, Fong complicates the famous antagonism between Eros and the death drive in reference to a third term: the woefully undertheorized drive to mastery. Rejuvenating Freudian metapsychology through the lens of this pivotal concept, he then provides fresh perspective on Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse's critiques of psychic life under the influence of modern cultural and technological change. The result is a novel vision of critical theory that rearticulates the nature of subjection in late capitalism and renews an old project of resistance.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fong, Benjamin

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologische Disziplinen Religionspsychologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologie / Allgemeines & Theorie Psychologische Theorie, Psychoanalyse
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Gesellschaftstheorie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionssoziologie und -psychologie, Spiritualität, Mystik

Über Autor(innen)

Benjamin Y. Fong is an Honors Faculty Fellow at Barrett, the Honors College of Arizona State University. His work has been published in Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion), The Stone (New York Times), and the Philosophical Salon (Los Angeles Review of Books).