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Is Oedipus Online?: Siting Freud After Freud (Short Circuits)
by Jerry Aline Flieger
Available from Powells Used Books
$14.95
on 9-9-2008
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Features
ISBN Number: 9780262562072
Subtitle: Siting Freud After Freud
Author: Flieger, Jerry Aline
Publisher: MIT Press (MA)
Subject: Freud, Sigmund
Subject: Psychoanalysis and culture
Subject: Movements, Psychoanalysis
Subject: Psychoanalysis
Edition Description: Trade paper
Series: Short Circuits
Publication Date: April 2005
Cover Type: Paperback
Grade Level: Professional and scholarly
Written in: English
Illustrations: Y
Number of Pages: 346
Book Size: 9 x 6 in
andquot;Can Freud be 'updated' in the twenty-first century, or is he a venerated but outmoded genius?andquot; asks Jerry Aline Flieger. In Is Oedipus Online? Flieger stages an encounter between psychoanalysis and the new century, testing the viability of Freud's theories in light of the emergent realities of our time. Responding to prominent critics of psychoanalysis and approaching our current preoccupations from a Freudian angle, she presents a reading of Freudian theory that coincides with and even clarifies new concepts in science and culture. Fractals, emergence, topological modeling, and other nonlinearities, for example, can be understood in light of both Freud's idea of the symptom as a nodal point and Lacan's concept of networks (rather than sequential cause and effect) that link psychic realities. At the same time, Flieger suggests how emerging paradigms in science and culture may elucidate Freud's cultural theory.
Like Slavoj Zizek, editor of the Short Circuits series, Flieger shifts effortlessly from field to field, discussing psychoanalysis, millennial culture, nonlinear science, and the landscape of cyberspace. In the first half of the book, andquot;Re-siting Oedipus,andquot; she draws on the work of Lyotard, Zizek, Deleuze, Virilio, Baudrillard, Haraway and others, to refute the assumption of Freud's outdatedness in the new century. Then, in andquot;Freud Sitings in Millennial Theory,andquot; she recasts oedipal theory, siting/sighting/citing Freud in a twenty-first-century context. Thinking of Oedipus — decipherer of enigmas, wanderer — as a navigator or search engine allows us to see psychoanalysis as a navigation device for the cultural maze of the andquot;bimillennialandquot; era, and Oedipus himself as a circuit of intersubjective processes by which we become human. For humanity — still needed in the andquot;posthumanandquot; century — is at the core of Freud's theory: andquot;Reading Freud today,andquot; Flieger writes, andquot;reminds us of the complications of the Sphinx's riddle, the enigma that Oedipus only thought he solved: the question of what it is to be human. Psychoanalysis continues to pose that question at the crossroads between instincts and their vicissitudes.andquot; Review: andquot; Is Oedipus Online? refreshes the screen of psychoanalysis. Its wit consists not just in its humorous updating of Freudian vocabulary, but more significantly in its compelling argument that Freud's theorization of the inhuman core of humanity is as valid and useful in understanding today's dilemmas as it ever was. The dialogue it coaxes between Deleuze and Lacan is one of the book's many incentive bonuses.andquot; --Joan Copjec, author of Imagine There's No Woman Review: andquot;Flieger gives a compelling analysis of identity, sexuation, and subjectivity in our post-millennial, techno-cultural world. Her probing critique of these issues is a clear demonstration of the continued relevance of psychoanalysis--via Freud, Lacan, Miller, and Zizek--to contemporary issues of culture and science.andquot;
--Russell Grigg, Deakin University, Australia, and editor of Female Sexuality: The Early Psychoanalytic Controversies Synopsis: Like Slavoj Zizek, editor of the Short Circuits series, Flieger shifts effortlessly from field to field, discussing psychoanalysis, millennial culture, nonlinear science, and the landscape of cyberspace. In the first half of the book, Re-siting Oedipus, she draws on the work of Lyotard, Zizek, Deleuze, Virilio, Baudrillard, Haraway and others, to refute the assumption of Freud's outdatedness in the new century. Then, in Freud Sitings in Millennial Theory, she recasts oedipal theory, siting/sighting/citing Freud in a twenty-first-century context. Thinking of Oedipus — decipherer of enigmas, wanderer — as a navigator or search engine allows us to see psychoanalysis as a navigation device for the cultural maze of the bimillennial era, and Oedipus himself as a circuit of intersubjective processes by which we become human. For humanity — still needed in the posthuman century — is at the core of Freud's theory: Reading Freud today, Flieger writes, reminds us of the complications of the Sphinx's riddle, the enigma that Oedipus only thought he solved: the question of what it is to be human. Psychoanalysis continues to pose that question at the crossroads between instincts and their vicissitudes. Synopsis: Psychoanalysis as a navigation device for the cultural maze of the twenty-first century.
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