Return to Freud
In this major work, leading theorist Samuel Weber provides a much-needed introduction to the thought of Jacques Lacan. Professor Weber approaches his subject from a dual perspective: he reads Lacan in the light of Freud (whose work Lacan is concerned to interpret), and from the perspective of structuralism, above all Saussure, from whom Lacan borrows and develops a distinctive conception of language as 'signifier'. Lacan is shown to contribute crucially to the rethinking of subjectivity that marks much of contemporary literary theory, and his 'return to Freud' - the complex relationship between his work and its Freudian antecedents - is explored extensively. The result, made available here for the first time in English (in a form thoroughly revised, updated, and augmented by the author) is a constantly illuminating work of intellectual enquiry, with important implications for our age.
- Major title in important series Literature, Culture, Theory
- Trendy subject - Lacan is in at the moment
- Revised and updated for this first English translation
Reviews & endorsements
'One of the best introductions to the work of Jacques Lacan. A book that is indispensable to an understanding of the structuralist and/or post-structuralist manner of thinking and writing.' Jean-Francois Lyotard
Product details
November 1991Hardback
9780521374101
206 pages
223 × 145 × 17 mm
0.37kg
Unavailable - out of print June 1994
Table of Contents
- Translator's introduction
- Prefatory note
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Mistaken identity: Lacan's theory of the 'Mirror Stage'
- 3. The unconscious chess player
- 4. The rise and fall of the signifier
- 5. Significant fallout: metonymy and metaphor
- 6. Spades and hearts: the subject as stylus
- 7. The subject as 'Fader': the imaginary and the symbolic
- 8. 'When someone speaks, it gets light': demand
- 9. The signification of the Phallus
- Appendix.