1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910798730803321

Autore

Fong Benjamin Y.

Titolo

Death and mastery : psychoanalytic drive theory and the subject of late capitalism / / Benjamin Y. Fong

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, [New York] : , : Columbia University Press, , 2016

©2016

ISBN

0-231-54261-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (239 pages)

Collana

New Directions in Critical Theory

Disciplina

150.19/5

Soggetti

Death instinct

Death - Psychological aspects

Capitalism - Psychological aspects

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Previously issued in print: 2016.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: In Defense of Drive Theory -- Part I: Dream -- 1. Death, Mastery, and the Origins of Life -- Part II: Interpretation -- 2. Between Need and Dread -- 3. Aggressivity in Psychoanalysis (Reprised) -- Part III: Working Through -- 4. The Psyche in Late Capitalism I -- 5. The Psyche in Late Capitalism II -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

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.