Ebook: Lacan and Deleuze: A Disjunctive Synthesis

A reconfiguration of the reception of Deleuze and Lacan in contemporary Continental philosophy

It is often said that Lacan is the most radical representative of structuralism, a thinker of negativity and alienation, whereas Deleuze is pictured as a great opponent of the structuralist project, a vitalist and a thinker of creative potentialities of desire. It seems the two cannot be further apart.

This volume of 12 new essays, breaks the myth of their foreignness (if not hostility) and places the two in a productive conversation. By taking on topics such as baroque, perversion, death drive, ontology/topology, face, linguistics and formalism the essays highlight key entry points for a discussion between Lacan's and Deleuze's respective thoughts. The proposed lines of investigation do not argue for a simple equation of their thoughts, but for a ‘disjunctive synthesis’, which acknowledges their differences, while insisting on their positive and mutually informed reading.

Contributors

Lorenzo Chiesa, European University at St Petersburg and the Freud Museum in St Petersburg, Russia.

Guillaume Collett, University of Kent, UK.

Adrian Johnston, University of New Mexico and Emory Psychoanalytic Institute in Atlanta, USA.

Peter Klepec, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Slovenia.

Paul M. Livingston, University of New Mexico, USA.

Boštjan Nedoh, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Slovenia.

Laurent de Sutter, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.

Samo Tomšič, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany.

Tadej Troha, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Slovenia.

Scott Wilson, Kingston University, UK.

Andreja Zevnik, University of Manchester, UK.

Alenka Zupančič, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Slovenia and European Graduate School, Switzerland.