Studies in Literary Theory

This course examines the genealogy and value of the libidinal vocabulary within some of the most urgent debates occurring at the contemporary intersection of political and psychoanalytic thought.

We will start by exploring Freud’s and Lacan’s respective theories of desire, examining in detail the constitutive relationship of desire to loss/lack.  We will continue by considering Deleuze and Guattari’s response to these psychoanalytic theories in A Thousand Plateaus.  We will discuss their notion of a productive desire, which has proved to be widely influential on other theorists from Hardt and Negri to Braidotti.  In considering the metamorphosis and political transformations of the concept of desire, we will examine the drift of desire toward love in its Spinozist and Christian resonances, as articulated by Negri in his essay “Kairos, Alma Venus, Multitudo.”

Next, we will analyze the notion of pleasure in Foucault’s late work, particularly as elaborated in the second volume of his History of Sexuality.  Why does Foucault deliberately abandon the vocabulary of desire in favor of one centered on pleasure?  What are the political and biopolitical consequences of his choice?

At the end of the course, we will consider the emergence of enjoyment as a necessary concept in Lacan’s later works, including a selection of Seminars VII and XVII, in order to assess his discussion of capitalism as the political organization of enjoyment.

The course will be taught seminar-style.

Works by Freud, Lacan, Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault, Negri, and Braidotti.