- South Burlington, United States
Todd McGowan
University of Vermont, Film and Television Studies, Faculty Member
What separates the ancient tragic hero from the modern is the alienation evinced in the modern figure. The contrast between Antigone’s obedience to her ancestor and Hamlet’s questioning of his dead father makes clear this split. The... more
What separates the ancient tragic hero from the modern is the
alienation evinced in the modern figure. The contrast between Antigone’s
obedience to her ancestor and Hamlet’s questioning of his dead father
makes clear this split. The alienation evident in modern tragedy provides
the basis for emancipation because it reveals how subjectivity cannot
coincide with the injunctions of any form of social authority, even that
which challenges the ruling order.
alienation evinced in the modern figure. The contrast between Antigone’s
obedience to her ancestor and Hamlet’s questioning of his dead father
makes clear this split. The alienation evident in modern tragedy provides
the basis for emancipation because it reveals how subjectivity cannot
coincide with the injunctions of any form of social authority, even that
which challenges the ruling order.
Research Interests:
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of Jacques Lacan’s Seminar VII on the ethics of psychoanalysis is the disappearing act that das Ding performs. When one begins the seminar, one has the sense, given its prominence, that this concept will... more
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of Jacques Lacan’s Seminar VII on the ethics of psychoanalysis is the disappearing act that das Ding performs. When one begins the seminar, one has the sense, given its prominence, that this concept will provide the key to interpreting the ethics of psychoanalysis. But if it is the key, Lacan hides the lock. After spending the majority of the seminar introducing and exploring the concept of das Ding, Lacan stops referring to it once he begins to talk about Anti- gone, the play that will exemplify his ethics. What’s more, when it comes time to provide a pithy statement of his ethical position – “the only thing one can be guilty of is giving ground relative to one’s desire” – he makes no reference at all to das Ding. Lacan sets up his discussion of the ethics of psychoanalysis by identifying the centrality of das Ding in the subject and in the subject’s relation- ship with others but then leaves it behind when it comes to theorizing the ethical position. But its disappearance places an ethical imperative on us. In order to make sense of what the ethical position inherent in psychoanalysis might be, we must trace the role that das Ding plays in its absence. We must locate das Ding in the constitution of ethics as such.
Research Interests:
Beginning with Immanuel Kant, the thinkers of German Idealism—Kant, J. G. Fichte, G. W. F. Hegel, and F. W. J. Schelling—conceive of freedom in a specifically anticapitalist fashion. For them, freedom involves not the ability to do... more
Beginning with Immanuel Kant, the thinkers of German Idealism—Kant, J. G. Fichte, G. W. F. Hegel, and F. W. J. Schelling—conceive of freedom in a specifically anticapitalist fashion. For them, freedom involves not the ability to do whatever one wants but the way that the subject limits itself. They have no patience for the liberal conception of freedom that predominates in the capitalist epoch and that predominates among philosophers who exist just prior to them.2 They see, collectively, that this liberal freedom is a mask for a profound unfreedom. By looking to them, we can see how an authentic conception of freedom must challenge the assumptions of liberalism. Their turn to the freedom of self-limitation becomes apparent initially in the moral philosophy of Kant.
Research Interests:
Christopher Nolan's Tenet reveals the political possibilities of Nachträglichkeit or retroactivity through how it structures its action scenes. The film suggests that we should locate hope in the past rather than in the future, that... more
Christopher Nolan's Tenet reveals the political possibilities of Nachträglichkeit or retroactivity through how it structures its action scenes. The film suggests that we should locate hope in the past rather than in the future, that turning toward the past in the proper direction for our political energies.
Research Interests:
The first two seasons of Twin Peaks (until the solution of Laura Palmer’s murder) develop Laura as the ultimate fantasy object. Then, Fire Walk With Me explodes this fantasy by showing the world from the perspective of the fantasy object... more
The first two seasons of Twin Peaks (until the solution of Laura Palmer’s murder) develop Laura as the ultimate fantasy object. Then, Fire Walk With Me explodes this fantasy by showing the world from the perspective of the fantasy object herself. But Fire Walk With Me leaves intact the figure of Agent Cooper in the fantasy, as the one who might save Laura at least posthumously from male sexual violence. The Return does to the figure of Agent Cooper what Fire Walk With Me does to Laura: it reveals that his effort to rescue Laura—and the efforts of men like him—is actually part of the violence done to her, not a remedy for it. Rather than providing salvation, he exacerbates the problem. Though we wait for Dale Cooper to emerge during almost the entire season, the final two episodes reveal the nefariousness of this fantasy figure.
Research Interests:
This essay aims to differentiate an emancipatory relation to fantays from a conservative relation. Although both sides have recourse to a fantasy structure and cannot do without one, emancipation takes a dramatically different approach to... more
This essay aims to differentiate an emancipatory relation to fantays from a conservative relation. Although both sides have recourse to a fantasy structure and cannot do without one, emancipation takes a dramatically different approach to fantasy than conservatism does. Fantasy has a conservative function, I claim, when it remains isolated from the social reality and an emancipatory function when it intersects with this reality. The conservative relation to fantasy insists that the enjoyment found in the fantasy is alien to the subjects doing the fantasizing, that an external other is the one enjoying while the subjects are not implicated in the fantasmatic enjoyment that they are nonetheless accessing. This is precisely what emancipation refuses. The emancipatory project constrains the subject to recognize its own involvement in the enjoyment that it fantasizes about. Emancipation demands taking responsibility for one’s own enjoyment.
Research Interests:
Todd McGowan discusses the perhaps most heated discussion of the pandemicthe Agamben controversy. If the current status quo reveals anything for philosophy, it is the inadequacies and ineptitude of the theory of biopower. Analyses of... more
Todd McGowan discusses the perhaps most heated discussion of the pandemicthe Agamben controversy. If the current status quo reveals anything for philosophy, it is the inadequacies and ineptitude of the theory of biopower. Analyses of power of both Foucauldian and Agambenian provenance support an anarchist dimension in contemporary global theory, which in its questioning of the state and capital-as if they were situated on the same plane and equally corrupt-"actually feeds capitalism's own logic." McGowan concludes by saying: "Anarchism's refusal of state power eliminates the site at which one can contest this logic with an alternative." Which is why both "Foucault and Agamben cede the struggle before it begins." To highlight the distinction between capital and the state is for McGowan the supreme task for the Left-pandemic capitalism only urges for this task to be accomplished.
Research Interests:
Hegel proclaims that art no longer has a fundamental role to play in modern society not because he thinks poorly of art but because he himself integrates art--specifically drama--into the operations of philosophy. Thus, his famous... more
Hegel proclaims that art no longer has a fundamental role to play in modern society not because he thinks poorly of art but because he himself integrates art--specifically drama--into the operations of philosophy. Thus, his famous statement on art that supposedly diminishes its importance must be read instead as an affirmation of the integral part that art must play in all future philosophizing.
Research Interests:
Capitalism depends on the fetishistic disavowal of the sacrifice that it demands. Without the possibility for this disavowal, the capitalist system cannot sustain itself. From the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, capitalism's dependence... more
Capitalism depends on the fetishistic disavowal of the sacrifice that it demands. Without the possibility for this disavowal, the capitalist system cannot sustain itself. From the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, capitalism's dependence on sacrifice has become impossible to miss. And as conservative leaders have asked us to be willing to sacrifice our lives for the sake of the capitalist economy, the fetishistic disavowal of this sacrifice becomes increasingly harder to sustain. By underlining the role that sacrifice plays in the production and reproduction of capital, we highlight the weak point of the capitalist system.
Research Interests:
Donald Trump's self-professed favorite film is Citizen Kane. This essay examines the Trump phenomenon through his misreading of the film and through the film's critique of the paranoid response to capitalist society.
Research Interests:
In the disaster film, the capitalist is always wrong. As a disaster looms for a region or for the world, those always looking for profit inevitably fail to see how the disaster's destructiveness will neutralize possibilities for advancing... more
In the disaster film, the capitalist is always wrong. As a disaster looms for a region or for the world, those always looking for profit inevitably fail to see how the disaster's destructiveness will neutralize possibilities for advancing the interests of capital. At the same time, while disasters impair the accumulation of capital, they also highlight a fundamental equality that capitalist relations obscure. Everyone is equal in the face of the disaster. This essay explores the disaster film in terms of its critique of capitalism and its implicit suggestion of an alternative.
Research Interests:
For psychoanalytic theory, the object of the cinema has always been the gaze. The importance of the gaze as the impossible object around which films are constructed is impossible to question. However, this essay contends that we should... more
For psychoanalytic theory, the object of the cinema has always been the gaze. The importance of the gaze as the impossible object around which films are constructed is impossible to question. However, this essay contends that we should consider the importance of the voice as a possible object of a particular type of cinema. We should think of these two objects, the voice and the gaze, as having a historical relationship with each other. The contention here is that while the gaze is the object of the sound film, the voice is the object of the silent film. The absence of voices in silent cinema provides the perfect form for depicting the voice as an absent object. Once characters actually begin to speak on the screen, however, their voices obscure the voice as an absent object, and the result is that the gaze becomes the central cinematic object and preoccupation.
Research Interests:
Proponents of wearing masks during the pandemic have argued that the mask is not political and simply serves public health. This essay argues that the mask is actually an important political signifier, a signifier that points toward... more
Proponents of wearing masks during the pandemic have argued that the mask is not political and simply serves public health. This essay argues that the mask is actually an important political signifier, a signifier that points toward universality. This is why contemporary populist leaders have refused to adopt policies mandating masks, despite the political benefits that such a policy would bring them. As an indication of universality, the mask represents a threat not just to populist leaders but also to the prevailing liberal ideology underlying the capitalist economy. The mask brings us into a constant confrontation with universality, which is the foundation for an emancipatory challenge to the logic of capitalism.
Research Interests:
The film Blade Runner 2049 reveals the contradiction that opens up between the demands of capitalist society and the imperatives of the police. It is through this contradiction that we can envision other possibilities beyond capitalist... more
The film Blade Runner 2049 reveals the contradiction that opens up between the demands of capitalist society and the imperatives of the police. It is through this contradiction that we can envision other possibilities beyond capitalist relations.
Research Interests:
In order to avoid the reduction of desire to demand and to produce a theory in keeping with the insights of psychoanalysis, Lacan had to move beyond Hegel's theorization based on recognition. To do so, Lacan had to come up with a new form... more
In order to avoid the reduction of desire to demand and to produce a theory in keeping with the insights of psychoanalysis, Lacan had to move beyond Hegel's theorization based on recognition. To do so, Lacan had to come up with a new form of object, an object irreducible to the signifier but with the power to arouse the desire of the subject. The theorization of the objet a enables Lacan to make an important advance on Hegel's theory of desire, an advance that effectively reverses the priority that Hegel establishes between the object and the Other. Despite the widespread association of Lacan with the signifier and its laws, his one great theoretical breakthrough concerns what remains absolutely irreducible to signification. My central contention in this essay is that Lacan's theory of desire allows us to understand how singularity appears in the cinema, despite the med-ium's inherent resistance to it. I examine this appearance of singularity through two filmic occasions-Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin and Michael Mann's Heat. It is a medium in which recognition predominates, and yet the singularity of the objet a nonetheless emerges and animates the desire of the spectator.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In the debate between materialism and idealism, Hegel makes a unique intervention. By taking idealism to its end point, he shows that idealism actually becomes a form of materialism. In this way, he rejects the opposition in favor of a... more
In the debate between materialism and idealism, Hegel makes a unique intervention. By taking idealism to its end point, he shows that idealism actually becomes a form of materialism. In this way, he rejects the opposition in favor of a dialectical approach that sees contradiction as what divides both ideas and matter from themselves, thereby facilitating their interaction.
Research Interests:
The commonsensical understanding of the superego views it as an internalization of the external law. The law prohibits smoking in an office building, and the subject who wants to smoke experiences superegoic pressure to not do so. This... more
The commonsensical understanding of the superego views it as an internalization of the external law. The law prohibits smoking in an office building, and the subject who wants to smoke experiences superegoic pressure to not do so. This pressure appears to follow directly from the external law and even to take the same form. But this masks the profound dissimilarity between the law from the superego, a dissimilarity that extends to their political effect. Whereas the fundamental effect of the law is to free the subject, the superego introduces a profound restriction on that freedom. Of course, it is impossible to eliminate the superego altogether—just as it is impossible to eliminate the law—but we can stop nourishing the superego. The identification of the superego in social relations and the struggle against its ideological effects is one of the central terrains for psychoanalytic politics.
Research Interests:
This essay contends that Jordan Peele's Us (2019) connects the psychic operation of fetishistic disavowal to the existence of class division. By exploring the role that fetishistic disavowal plays in commodity fetishism, the film makes... more
This essay contends that Jordan Peele's Us (2019) connects the psychic operation of fetishistic disavowal to the existence of class division. By exploring the role that fetishistic disavowal plays in commodity fetishism, the film makes clear how the psychic disposition of the ruling class perpetuates the suffering of an underclass that lives beneath the surface. Us reveals the connection between two forms of fetishism just as it reveals the inseparability of the psyche from politics. What separates Us from the typical Marxist critique of bourgeois individualism is the connection that it establishes between the psychic disposition of the individual and the social situation in which the individual exists. Without the necessary psychic response to the situation, class inequality would quickly become unsustainable. Through the nature of the revolt the film depicts, Peele attempts to illustrate how the psychic disorders of individuals ensconced within capitalist society make possible the sustained existence of its inegalitarian structure.
Research Interests:
Politics today seems to revolve around power. Uncovering the working of power in politics was the main task of both Marx and Nietzsche. But the crucial psychoanalytic intervention into the question of politics is its introduction of... more
Politics today seems to revolve around power. Uncovering the working of power in politics was the main task of both Marx and Nietzsche. But the crucial psychoanalytic intervention into the question of politics is its introduction of enjoyment as the driving force in all our political acts. In this way, psychoanalytic theory represents a fundamental challenge to Marxist or Nietzschean conceptions of politics. In contrast to theories that focus on the good or on power, psychoanalytic theory explains our proclivity for acting against our self-interest as a clear product of the drive to enjoy. In a psychoanalytic conception of politics, one must leave a space for enjoyment, but one cannot consciously organize a political structure around it, since enjoyment cannot be our conscious aim. From Good To Power Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud all shattered political illusions, but they didn't shatter illusions in the same way. Given their basic political conservatism relative to Marx, it makes sense to group Nietzsche and Freud together, to see their attack on political illusions as fundamentally different than Marx's. Marx undermines illusions not to enlighten individuals but in order to help bring about a communist revolution that would change the political terrain altogether. Neither Nietzsche nor Freud has any such aim. If they envision political change at all, it is certainly not the egalitarian revolution that Marx proposes. But if we look closely at the critique of political illusions advanced by Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, it turns out that Marx and Nietzsche have much more in common with each other than either does with Freud. Despite Nietzsche's abhorrence for socialism (which he pejoratively labels "latent Christianity"), he actually echoes Marx's interpretation of politics as a struggle for power. 1 Whereas Marx identifies all political history as the struggle between classes for power over each other, Nietzsche sees politics as the means that individuals or groups use to assert their power. There is a family resemblance between Marx and Nietzsche when it comes to analyzing the role that political illusions have for us. What's going on in politics for both is really a power struggle. Freud, in contrast, sees libido or enjoyment as the basis for all political organizations. He shatters political illusions by revealing that they secretly express forms of enjoyment. This hasn't been completely clear simply because Freud seldom discusses politics as directly as Marx and (to a lesser extent) Nietzsche do.
Research Interests:
The biopolitical interpretation of contemporary violence, advanced most conspicuously by Michel Foucault, views violence as the production and circumscription of the life of a people. According to this interpretation, biopower is a... more
The biopolitical interpretation of contemporary violence, advanced most conspicuously by Michel Foucault, views violence as the production and circumscription of the life of a people. According to this interpretation, biopower is a violence that produces life rather than punishing with death. But this essay argues that, as psychoanalytic theory shows, death is always inserted into life in the form of lack. The biopolitical turn is illusory and obscures the continued sexualized nature of contemporary violence, a violence that retains its fundamental link with loss and death rather than bare life.
Research Interests:
Just as Freud reveals the fundamental kinship between the purportedly normal subject and the neurotic, Lacan indicates this subject’s kinship with the psychotic. Psychosis, for Lacan, involves the foreclosure (Verwerfung) of the master... more
Just as Freud reveals the fundamental kinship between the purportedly normal subject and the neurotic, Lacan indicates this subject’s kinship with the psychotic. Psychosis, for Lacan, involves the foreclosure (Verwerfung) of the master signifier. Whereas most subjects the signifier of law as authoritative and legitimate, the psychotic does it. This rejection causes the subject to completely misinterpret the law. For the psychotic, the law exists, but it does not emanate from a social authority. Instead, it represents an arbitrary restriction that an illegitimate external authority imposes on the subject. Though Lacan is careful to distinguish the structure of psychosis from that of neurosis (and thus from normalcy), his investigation of psychosis nonetheless shows that all subjects of modernity share a delusion that mirrors that of the psychotic. In his seminar on the psychoses, he notes that considering oneself an autonomous individual is requisite for the modern subject. And yet, he claims, “the discourse of freedom … is personal and yet common, and always, whether imperceptibly or not, delusional.” Freedom is delusional insofar as the subject envisions itself in an external relation with the law. This delusion places the modern subject in the same boat as the psychotic and thoroughly derails the project of freedom. But an exploration of what Lacan says about psychosis points toward another conception of freedom—a freedom that conceives the law not as an external prohibition but as the subject’s internal obstacle, as a nonsensical signifier that provides the basis for the subject’s symbolic universe. The investigation of psychosis not only reveals the psychotic dimension of the normal but also points toward an alternative.
Research Interests:
Twin Peaks (David Lynch and Mark Frost, 1990-1991) promulgates ideological fantasies as much as any other television program. But it takes a different approach to these fantasies, which is why the series is ideologically the opposite of... more
Twin Peaks (David Lynch and Mark Frost, 1990-1991) promulgates ideological fantasies as much as any other television program. But it takes a different approach to these fantasies, which is why the series is ideologically the opposite of most of its television counterparts. Lynch and Frost’s series separates the fantasmatic elements of our social reality from that reality, and the effect is one of undermining our capacity for investing ourselves in that social reality. Twin Peaks separates fantasy from the bare symbolic structure that it undergirds, and at the same time, it exposes the obscene underside of the social reality that typically remains obscured. When the show performs this act of radical separation, the appeal of the symbolic structure evaporates, and the hold that ideology has over us as subjects dissipates. We see that fantasy, not the promises of ideology, is the source of our enjoyment and of our investment in ideology. This has the effect, for the spectator attuned to the formal demands of the show, of freeing the subject from its ideological interpellation and opening the subject to the direct appeal of fantasy. In this way, far from being ideologically identical to typical television programs, Twin Peaks marks a singular challenge to the role that fantasy plays within the functioning of ideology.
Research Interests:
The problem of the superhero is that this figure acts takes up the position of the sovereign exception and almost always thereby functions ideologically. Christopher Nolan's superhero films are his most ideological, revealing that as a... more
The problem of the superhero is that this figure acts takes up the position of the sovereign exception and almost always thereby functions ideologically. Christopher Nolan's superhero films are his most ideological, revealing that as a filmmaker he is unable to escape this structural proclivity.
Research Interests:
An explanation of Lacan's concept of the gaze, including a discussion of three films that utilize it: Citizen Kane, Vertigo, and Tokyo Story.
Research Interests:
This essay contrasts imaginary plenitude with real excessive enjoyment in the cinema, looking at the differences in this light between Black Swan and 127 Hours.
Research Interests:
David Lynch's film Mulholland Drive reveals that the price for accumulation is the sacrifice of enjoyment, which is what makes this film a masterpiece of anti-capitalist art.
Research Interests:
When it depicts the destruction of the entire planet, Melancholia displays its inability to imagine a negation of capitalist modernity other than total destruction, and in this precise sense, it aligns itself with fascism’s... more
When it depicts the destruction of the entire planet, Melancholia displays its inability to imagine a negation of capitalist modernity other than total destruction, and in this precise sense, it aligns itself with fascism’s aestheticization of politics. The film departs from the genre of the disaster film not by breaking with the genre’s flirtation with fascism but by moving beyond mere flirtation. Because von Trier cannot grasp subjectivity as an alternative to the suffocating life of capitalist modernity, he opts for an insistence on death, which locates Melancholia within the universe of fascism, a universe in which politics disappears beneath the beautiful spectacle of apocalyptic destruction.
Research Interests:
The commonsense conception of the universal associates it with the master signifier. We tend to think of universality as an overarching position that dominates all the particulars under its provenance just as the master signifier plays a... more
The commonsense conception of the universal associates it with the master signifier. We tend to think of universality as an overarching position that dominates all the particulars under its provenance just as the master signifier plays a determinative role for all other signifiers. The universal occupies a position of mastery relative to particulars and imposes an orientation on them. This equation of the universal with the master signifier is commonsensical because it seems utterly self-evident. The link between the universal and the master signifier holds up under closer examination. Through recourse to the universal, we can recognize the nature of the particular's connection to other particulars. The universal assures us that particulars do not exist as isolated entities. Instead, identifying them requires taking other particulars into account. The fact that their relations to other particulars are inextricable from their own particularity becomes evident only through the appearance of the universal. A universal such as equality enables us to recognize how all particulars relate to each other. They relate as equals. Similarly, the link between signifiers becomes evident only through the appearance of the master signifier. Without the master signifier, there are just a multitude of signifiers without any signification. This signifier offers a basis for signification. When I
Research Interests:
Hegel is the first philosopher to make love the point of departure for his entire philosophical project and to discover an ontology on that basis. Love fascinated the young Hegel because it represents the identification of contraries and... more
Hegel is the first philosopher to make love the point of departure for his entire philosophical project and to discover an ontology on that basis. Love fascinated the young Hegel because it represents the identification of contraries and the sustaining of contradiction as a positive force. As Hegel sees it, the lover allows the beloved to have more value than the lover herself or himself, and yet at the same time, the lover remains the source of this valuing. The value of the other outweighs that of the subject but only because the subject grants the other this value. Love thus enables the subject to overcome difference. As his thought matures, Hegel identifies this structure of identity in difference as the basic form not only of all thought but of being itself. Love provides the avenue for granting contradiction a privileged ontological position.
Research Interests:
Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar enacts Hegel’s notion of freedom through the abandonment of place, an abandonment possible only through adherence to an emancipatory fiction.
Research Interests:
Historicism has dominated literary studies. The effect of this domination is the reduction in importance of the literary text relative to its historical context. This essay argues that this dominance has the effect of mitigating our... more
Historicism has dominated literary studies. The effect of this domination is the reduction in importance of the literary text relative to its historical context. This essay argues that this dominance has the effect of mitigating our ability to recognize the potentially disruptive trauma of the literary text. The theoretical work of Slavoj Zizek suggests an alternative.
Research Interests:
When we watch violence, the enjoyment we experience is often linked to the enjoyment of our self-destruction, which psychoanalysis grants an ethical status. The lure of immediate violence, however, attempts to transform self-destruction... more
When we watch violence, the enjoyment we experience is often linked to the enjoyment of our self-destruction, which psychoanalysis grants an ethical status. The lure of immediate violence, however, attempts to transform self-destruction into sadistic pleasure. This essay makes the case for the ethical status of violence that avows its mediation.
Research Interests:
Todd Haynes's film Far From Heaven shows that our fantasmatic nostalgia for the 1950s stems not from the desire for the repressiveness of this era but for the possibilities for enjoyment that it harbored.
Research Interests:
The two great comedians in the history of cinema, Charlie Chapin and Buster Keaton, embody the two extremes of comic excess. Despite their contemporaneousness, Chaplin and Keaton produce opposing forms of comedy, and in this way, they... more
The two great comedians in the history of cinema, Charlie Chapin and Buster Keaton, embody the two extremes of comic excess. Despite their contemporaneousness, Chaplin and Keaton produce opposing forms of comedy, and in this way, they show how comedy can emerge through exclusion from the social order or through that order’s internal contradictions. Chaplin embodies exclusion, while Keaton exposes an internal excess within society.
Research Interests:
The philosophical positions of Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek emerge in opposition to the deconstruction of the history of philosophy and to the corresponding rejection of the category of the subject. The subject becomes in their thought... more
The philosophical positions of Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek emerge in opposition to the deconstruction of the history of philosophy and to the corresponding rejection of the category of the subject. The subject becomes in their thought not a philosophical trap to be evaded but a political possibility to be realized. However, just as their embrace of the category of the subject distinguishes them from the theoretical landscape in which they exist, it is also an important point of divergence between their philosophical systems. Crucial to both such philosophical systems – and the distinct conceptions of the subject that emerges from them – is the significance of ruptures in the continuity of history. Badiou’s ‘event’ and Zizek’s ‘act’ name these ruptures. This article introduces and compares these respective approaches, drawing attention both to the important ways in which their thought diverges and to how Zizek’s system implicitly responds to the contradictions in Badiou’s.
Research Interests:
This essay contrasts the surprise ending with the expected surprise, a type of ending that we can associate with the logic of the drive. The expected surprise appears in Mississippi Mermaid, Before Sunset, and Eternal Sunshine of the... more
This essay contrasts the surprise ending with the expected surprise, a type of ending that we can associate with the logic of the drive. The expected surprise appears in Mississippi Mermaid, Before Sunset, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. By employing this type of ending, these films thrust spectators into an ethics of the drive, which has the effect of thwarting desire.
Research Interests:
One of the simplest ways in which we have historically suggested the link between humans and other animals is by using animal terms to describe human behavior. Rather than describing someone's behavior through adjectives and adverbs that... more
One of the simplest ways in which we have historically suggested the link between humans and other animals is by using animal terms to describe human behavior. Rather than describing someone's behavior through adjectives and adverbs that locate a behavior in relation to other human actions, we compare it to the actions of an animal. These kinds of comparisons take place all the time and function as a kind of descriptive shorthand. But this is not the full extent of their role. The existence of animal metaphors in everyday parlance seems to testify overtly to our kinship with other animals. We can compare ourselves to animals because we are alike in various ways—or at least because we consider ourselves alike. Rather than revealing an otherwise obscured affiliation between human and animal, however, the animal terms used to describe human behavior paradoxically reveal our distinctiveness from other animals.
Research Interests:
The political valence of comedy is difficult to determine. It appears often to mock figures of authority, but ideology also relies on comedy to create an investment in the ruling social structure. This essay argues that comedy has no... more
The political valence of comedy is difficult to determine. It appears often to mock figures of authority, but ideology also relies on comedy to create an investment in the ruling social structure. This essay argues that comedy has no inherent political leaning. We must determine the politics of comedy by analyzing how the conception of the social order that it produces. If comedy creates an image of the social order as a whole, it has a conservative function. But if comedy reveals the incompleteness of the social structure, it functions as a critical comedy that plays an emancipatory role in political struggle.
Research Interests:
Capitalism triumphs by hiding the gaze--that is, by hiding its distortion of the world in order to present itself as natural. This essay examines the role that the gaze plays in making us aware of the tendentious status of capitalism.
Research Interests:
Hegel's Philosophy of History is often taken as an introduction to Hegel's thought. This essay argues that the Philosophy of History is actually Hegel's least representative work and can only be understood through a reading of the Science... more
Hegel's Philosophy of History is often taken as an introduction to Hegel's thought. This essay argues that the Philosophy of History is actually Hegel's least representative work and can only be understood through a reading of the Science of Logic. But once we look at the Philosophy of History in this way, we are able to see the importance of Hegel's controversial idea that history comes to an end. Hegel's conception of the end of history in the Philosophy of History corresponds to the discovery, with Christianity, that even God does not escape contradiction. This discovery has the effect of freeing humanity from divine authority because authority can only function through the image of itself as substantial and non-contradictory. The idea of freedom that Hegel develops in the Philosophy of History thus depends on the idea of contradiction that he works out in the Science of Logic.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This essay argues that Hitchcock's films display the insignificance of the object for the spectator in order to encourage spectators to free themselves from their investment in the object, which Hitchcock envisions as the fundamental... more
This essay argues that Hitchcock's films display the insignificance of the object for the spectator in order to encourage spectators to free themselves from their investment in the object, which Hitchcock envisions as the fundamental ethical gesture.
Research Interests:
Hegel implicitly advocates a theoretical politics in which theory gains insights into politics by refusing to turn itself into a vehicle for political change and instead by reconciling its position absolutely with that of the present.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Speculative realism critiques the transcendental turn in philosophy, a turn that it sees manifested in Kant. But Hegel, in contrast, theorizes a return to reality through the contradictions of the transcendental rather than by attempting... more
Speculative realism critiques the transcendental turn in philosophy, a turn that it sees manifested in Kant. But Hegel, in contrast, theorizes a return to reality through the contradictions of the transcendental rather than by attempting to bypass it. In this way, Hegel provides an alternative version of speculative realism.
Research Interests:
Embracing Alienation offers a completely different take on alienation, claiming that the effort to overcome it is not a radical response to the current state of things but a failure to see the constitutive power of alienation for all of... more
Embracing Alienation offers a completely different take on alienation, claiming that the effort to overcome it is not a radical response to the current state of things but a failure to see the constitutive power of alienation for all of us. Instead of trying to overcome alienation and accede to an unalienated existence, it argues, we should instead redeem alienation as an existential and political program.
Engaging with Shakespeare’s great tragedies, contemporary films such as Don’t Worry Darling, and even what occurs on a public bus, as well as thinkers such as Descartes, Hegel, and Marx, this book provides a concrete elaboration of how alienation frees people from their situation. Relying on the tradition of dialectical thought and psychoanalytic theory, Embracing Alienation reveals a new way of conceiving how we measure progress — or even if progress should be the aim at all.
Engaging with Shakespeare’s great tragedies, contemporary films such as Don’t Worry Darling, and even what occurs on a public bus, as well as thinkers such as Descartes, Hegel, and Marx, this book provides a concrete elaboration of how alienation frees people from their situation. Relying on the tradition of dialectical thought and psychoanalytic theory, Embracing Alienation reveals a new way of conceiving how we measure progress — or even if progress should be the aim at all.
Research Interests:
What stands out about racism is its ability to withstand efforts to legislate or educate it away. The Racist Fantasy argues that its persistence is due to a massive unconscious investment in a fundamental racist fantasy. As long as this... more
What stands out about racism is its ability to withstand efforts to legislate or educate it away. The Racist Fantasy argues that its persistence is due to a massive unconscious investment in a fundamental racist fantasy. As long as this fantasy continues to underlie contemporary society, the book claims, racism will remain with us, no matter how strenuously we struggle to eliminate it.
The racist fantasy, a fantasy in which the racial other is a figure who blocks the enjoyment of the racist, is a shared social structure. No one individual invented it, and no one individual is responsible for its perpetuation. While no one is guilty for the emergence of the racist fantasy, people are nonetheless responsible for keeping it alive and thus responsible for fighting against it.
The Racist Fantasy examines how this fantasy provides the psychic basis for the racism that appears so conspicuously throughout modern history. The racist fantasy informs everything from lynching and police shootings to Hollywood blockbusters and musical tastes. This fantasy takes root under capitalism as a way of explaining the failures and disappointments that result from the relationship to the commodity. The struggle against racism involves dislodging the fantasy structure and to change the capitalist relations that require it. This is the project of this book.
The racist fantasy, a fantasy in which the racial other is a figure who blocks the enjoyment of the racist, is a shared social structure. No one individual invented it, and no one individual is responsible for its perpetuation. While no one is guilty for the emergence of the racist fantasy, people are nonetheless responsible for keeping it alive and thus responsible for fighting against it.
The Racist Fantasy examines how this fantasy provides the psychic basis for the racism that appears so conspicuously throughout modern history. The racist fantasy informs everything from lynching and police shootings to Hollywood blockbusters and musical tastes. This fantasy takes root under capitalism as a way of explaining the failures and disappointments that result from the relationship to the commodity. The struggle against racism involves dislodging the fantasy structure and to change the capitalist relations that require it. This is the project of this book.
Research Interests:
While understanding the psychological structure of pleasure and desire might seem to be unrelated to understanding our current political crisis, Enjoyment Right and Left argues that the intrinsically excessive nature of enjoyment is... more
While understanding the psychological structure of pleasure and desire might seem to be unrelated to understanding our current political crisis,
Enjoyment Right and Left argues that the intrinsically excessive nature of enjoyment is critically important to understand as we try to overcome the contradictions and conflicts that arise in a world that appears split between right and left.
Enjoyment Right and Left argues that the intrinsically excessive nature of enjoyment is critically important to understand as we try to overcome the contradictions and conflicts that arise in a world that appears split between right and left.
Research Interests:
The great political ideas and movements of the modern world were founded on a promise of universal emancipation. But in recent decades, much of the Left has grown suspicious of such aspirations. Critics see the invocation of universality... more
The great political ideas and movements of the modern world were founded on a promise of universal emancipation. But in recent decades, much of the Left has grown suspicious of such aspirations. Critics see the invocation of universality as a form of domination or a way of speaking for others, and have come to favor a politics of particularism―often derided as “identity politics.” Others, both centrists and conservatives, associate universalism with twentieth-century totalitarianism and hold that it is bound to lead to catastrophe.
This book develops a new conception of universality that helps us rethink political thought and action. It argues that universals such as equality and freedom are not imposed on us. They emerge from our shared experience of their absence and our struggle to attain them. The book reconsiders the history of Nazism and Stalinism and reclaims the universalism of movements fighting racism, sexism, and homophobia. He demonstrates that the divide between Right and Left comes down to particularity versus universality. Despite the accusation of identity politics directed against leftists, every emancipatory political project is fundamentally a universal one―and the real proponents of identity politics are the right wing. Through a wide range of examples in contemporary politics, film, and history, Universality and Identity Politics offers an antidote to the impasses of identity and an inspiring vision of twenty-first-century collective struggle.
This book develops a new conception of universality that helps us rethink political thought and action. It argues that universals such as equality and freedom are not imposed on us. They emerge from our shared experience of their absence and our struggle to attain them. The book reconsiders the history of Nazism and Stalinism and reclaims the universalism of movements fighting racism, sexism, and homophobia. He demonstrates that the divide between Right and Left comes down to particularity versus universality. Despite the accusation of identity politics directed against leftists, every emancipatory political project is fundamentally a universal one―and the real proponents of identity politics are the right wing. Through a wide range of examples in contemporary politics, film, and history, Universality and Identity Politics offers an antidote to the impasses of identity and an inspiring vision of twenty-first-century collective struggle.
Research Interests:
After the decline of the Marxist Hegelianism that dominated the twentieth century, leading thinkers are rediscovering Hegel’s thought as a resource for contemporary politics. This book offers us a Hegel for the twenty-first century.... more
After the decline of the Marxist Hegelianism that dominated the twentieth century, leading thinkers are rediscovering Hegel’s thought as a resource for contemporary politics. This book offers us a Hegel for the twenty-first century. Simultaneously an introduction to Hegel and a fundamental reimagining of Hegel’s project, Emancipation After Hegel presents a radical Hegel who speaks to a world overwhelmed by right-wing populism, authoritarianism, neoliberalism, and economic inequalities. It argues that the revolutionary core of Hegel’s thought is contradiction. The book reveals that contradiction is inexorable and that we must attempt to sustain it rather than overcoming it or dismissing it as a logical failure. Hegel’s notion of contradiction, when applied to contemporary problems, challenges any assertion of unitary identity as every identity is in tension with itself and dependent on others. An accessible and compelling reinterpretation of an often-misunderstood thinker, this book shows us a way forward to a new politics of emancipation as we reconcile ourselves to the inevitability of contradiction and find solidarity in not belonging.
A series of interviews on youtube provide an introduction to the book is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj-5N_7po70&t=3s
And the "Why Theory" podcast discusses the book here: https://soundcloud.com/whytheory/contradiction
A series of interviews on youtube provide an introduction to the book is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj-5N_7po70&t=3s
And the "Why Theory" podcast discusses the book here: https://soundcloud.com/whytheory/contradiction
Research Interests:
Comedy has traditionally proven difficult to theorize. Though there have been several notable philosophies of comedy (like Sigmund Freud’s or Henri Bergson’s), comedy seems resistant to theorizing in a way that tragedy is not. There is... more
Comedy has traditionally proven difficult to theorize. Though there have been several notable philosophies of comedy (like Sigmund Freud’s or Henri Bergson’s), comedy seems resistant to theorizing in a way that tragedy is not. There is an immediacy associated with comedy that renders it difficult to translate into other cultures or across long periods of time, and it is this immediacy that presents a barrier to making sense of it. The theory of comedy developed in Only a Joke Can Save Us takes this difficulty of theorizing comedy as its point of departure. The argument of the book is the comedy occurs in the necessarily fleeting moments when oppositions—specifically the opposition between lack and excess—collide. If we experience lack or excess in isolation, there is no comedy, but comedy always erupts when they intersect.
Theorizing comedy in this way enables us to grasp what comedy reveals about subjects and the society that they inhabit. Comedy doesn’t simply reveal the hidden truth of society but rather exposes the connections that everyday life keeps at a distance. Comedy is not inherently radical, but it does always bring the disparate phenomena of lack and excess into proximity, and this exposes their inherent relationship for us as subjects. We are excessive beings because we are lacking beings. This becomes evident when we pay attention to the comic moment.
Theorizing comedy in this way enables us to grasp what comedy reveals about subjects and the society that they inhabit. Comedy doesn’t simply reveal the hidden truth of society but rather exposes the connections that everyday life keeps at a distance. Comedy is not inherently radical, but it does always bring the disparate phenomena of lack and excess into proximity, and this exposes their inherent relationship for us as subjects. We are excessive beings because we are lacking beings. This becomes evident when we pay attention to the comic moment.
Research Interests:
Despite creating vast inequalities and propping up reactionary world regimes, capitalism has many passionate defenders―but not because of what it withholds from some and gives to others. Capitalism dominates because it mimics the... more
Despite creating vast inequalities and propping up reactionary world regimes, capitalism has many passionate defenders―but not because of what it withholds from some and gives to others. Capitalism dominates because it mimics the structure of our desire while hiding the trauma that accompanies our desire. People from all backgrounds enjoy what capitalism provides, but at the same time are told more and better is yet to come. Capitalism traps us through creating a sense of dissatisfaction that compels us after the new, the better, and the more.
Capitalism's parasitic relationship to our desires gives it the illusion of corresponding to our natural impulses, which is how capitalism's defenders characterize it. By understanding this psychic strategy, "Capitalism and Desire" aims to divest us of our addiction to capitalist enrichment and help us rediscover enjoyment as we actually experienced it. By locating it in the present, the book points toward freedom from our attachment to a better future and the belief that capitalism is an essential outgrowth of human nature. From this perspective, our economic, social, and political worlds open up to real political change. Filled with examples from film, television, consumer culture, and everyday life, "Capitalism and Desire" brings a new, psychoanalytically grounded approach to political and social theory.
"Capitalism and Desire" provides the first psychoanalysis of capitalism as an economic system. It looks at the effects that capitalism has on the psyche of those invested in it in order to understand its staying power. The book does so by examining capitalism through the lens of the major figures of capitalist economics, whose analyses of the system expose the key to its effectiveness. The book contends that capitalism emerges by writing itself on top of the structure of desire, but it has the effect of obscuring the way that desire satisfies itself. By hiding the nature of our satisfaction, capitalism produces subjects who constantly believe themselves dissatisfied and wanting more. The production of a dissatisfaction that covers over an underlying satisfaction is the primary psychic operation of capitalism, and it provides the key to explaining capitalism's appeal even among those who do not benefit materially from it. By understanding the relationship between capitalism and our desire, we can take stock of the investment in the system.
Capitalism's parasitic relationship to our desires gives it the illusion of corresponding to our natural impulses, which is how capitalism's defenders characterize it. By understanding this psychic strategy, "Capitalism and Desire" aims to divest us of our addiction to capitalist enrichment and help us rediscover enjoyment as we actually experienced it. By locating it in the present, the book points toward freedom from our attachment to a better future and the belief that capitalism is an essential outgrowth of human nature. From this perspective, our economic, social, and political worlds open up to real political change. Filled with examples from film, television, consumer culture, and everyday life, "Capitalism and Desire" brings a new, psychoanalytically grounded approach to political and social theory.
"Capitalism and Desire" provides the first psychoanalysis of capitalism as an economic system. It looks at the effects that capitalism has on the psyche of those invested in it in order to understand its staying power. The book does so by examining capitalism through the lens of the major figures of capitalist economics, whose analyses of the system expose the key to its effectiveness. The book contends that capitalism emerges by writing itself on top of the structure of desire, but it has the effect of obscuring the way that desire satisfies itself. By hiding the nature of our satisfaction, capitalism produces subjects who constantly believe themselves dissatisfied and wanting more. The production of a dissatisfaction that covers over an underlying satisfaction is the primary psychic operation of capitalism, and it provides the key to explaining capitalism's appeal even among those who do not benefit materially from it. By understanding the relationship between capitalism and our desire, we can take stock of the investment in the system.
Research Interests:
Although there have been many attempts to apply the ideas of psychoanalysis to political thought, this book is the first to identify the political project inherent in the fundamental tenets of psychoanalysis. And this political project,... more
Although there have been many attempts to apply the ideas of psychoanalysis to political thought, this book is the first to identify the political project inherent in the fundamental tenets of psychoanalysis. And this political project, Todd McGowan contends, provides an avenue for emancipatory politics after the failure of Marxism in the twentieth century.
Where others seeking the political import of psychoanalysis have looked to Freud’s early work on sexuality, McGowan focuses on Freud’s discovery of the death drive and Jacques Lacan’s elaboration of this concept. He argues that the self-destruction occurring as a result of the death drive is the foundational act of emancipation around which we should construct our political philosophy. Psychoanalysis offers the possibility for thinking about emancipation not as an act of overcoming loss but as the embrace of loss. It is only through the embrace of loss, McGowan suggests, that we find the path to enjoyment, and enjoyment is the determinative factor in all political struggles—and only in a political project that embraces the centrality of loss will we find a viable alternative to global capitalism.
Where others seeking the political import of psychoanalysis have looked to Freud’s early work on sexuality, McGowan focuses on Freud’s discovery of the death drive and Jacques Lacan’s elaboration of this concept. He argues that the self-destruction occurring as a result of the death drive is the foundational act of emancipation around which we should construct our political philosophy. Psychoanalysis offers the possibility for thinking about emancipation not as an act of overcoming loss but as the embrace of loss. It is only through the embrace of loss, McGowan suggests, that we find the path to enjoyment, and enjoyment is the determinative factor in all political struggles—and only in a political project that embraces the centrality of loss will we find a viable alternative to global capitalism.
Research Interests:
Political philosophy, from Plato onward, has occupied itself with the distribution of power. Rupture opens up a new way of conceiving politics. What we term a rupture is the violent disruption of the givens and norms of a situation, and... more
Political philosophy, from Plato onward, has occupied itself with the distribution of power. Rupture opens up a new way of conceiving politics. What we term a rupture is the violent disruption of the givens and norms of a situation, and the contention of this book is that rupture creates value by introducing distinction into being and that there is no value without this event. Distinctions, such as those between justice and injustice, owe their existence to a rupture from the natural world, but the link between these distinctions and rupture is lost over time. Distinctions come to seem self-evident and self-authorized, but their radical origin never fully disappears. Rupture both theorizes and performs the primordially creative dimension of the rupture: the book argues it is only through the idea of rupture that one can re-vivify the giant themes of political philosophy—universality, equality, fraternity, freedom.
Research Interests:
"Out of Time" examines the explosion of current films that distort linear chronology for the sake of revealing the foundational role that repetition plays in our experience. These films, which include "Memento," "Eternal Sunshine of the... more
"Out of Time" examines the explosion of current films that distort linear chronology for the sake of revealing the foundational role that repetition plays in our experience. These films, which include "Memento," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Pulp Fiction," and many others, are part of an aesthetic revolution that locates ethics in the turn away from time.
Research Interests:
"The Real Gaze" develops a new theory of the cinema by rethinking the concept of the gaze, which has long been central in film theory. Where historically film scholars have located the gaze on the side of the spectator, McGowan positions... more
"The Real Gaze" develops a new theory of the cinema by rethinking the concept of the gaze, which has long been central in film theory. Where historically film scholars have located the gaze on the side of the spectator, McGowan positions it within the filmic image. It is the point within the image that doesn’t fit and disturbs the coherence of the image. This objective gaze thus has the radical potential to disrupt the spectator’s sense of identity and challenge the foundations of ideology. With this theoretical basis, "The Real Gaze" demonstrates how we can analyze films through the relationship they take up to the gaze. They can either emphasize its disruptiveness within the visual field in various ways or try to domesticate the trauma that it represents. Through the exploration of these different positions relative to the gaze, McGowan conceives of four distinct types of cinema: a cinema of fantasy that emphasizes how the gaze distorts the filmic image; a cinema of desire that focuses on the gaze as an absent point within the visual field; a cinema of integration that hides the gaze; and a cinema of intersection that highlights the gaze by isolating it through dramatic formal changes. The book investigates each of these cinematic forms through a detailed analysis of representative directors, including Orson Welles, Claire Denis, Stanley Kubrick, Spike Lee, Federico Fellini, Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Andre Tarkovsky, Wim Wenders, and David Lynch. In each case, we see the political, cultural, and existential ramifications that follow from the role that the gaze plays in the films.
Research Interests:
The Film Theory in Practice Series fills a gaping hole in the world of film theory. By marrying the explanation of film theory with interpretation of a film, the volumes provide discrete examples of how film theory can serve as the basis... more
The Film Theory in Practice Series fills a gaping hole in the world of film theory. By marrying the explanation of film theory with interpretation of a film, the volumes provide discrete examples of how film theory can serve as the basis for textual analysis. The first book in the series, Psychoanalytic Film Theory and The Rules of the Game, offers a concise introduction to psychoanalytic film theory in jargon-free language and shows how this theory can be deployed to interpret Jean Renoir's classic film. It traces the development of psychoanalytic film theory through its foundation in the thought of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan through its contemporary manifestation in the work of theorists like Slavoj Žižek and Joan Copjec. This history will help students and scholars who are eager to learn more about this important area of film theory and bring the concepts of psychoanalytic film theory into practice through a detailed interpretation of the film.
Research Interests:
Since the release of "Do the Right Thing" in 1989, Spike Lee has established himself as a cinematic icon. Lee's mostly independent films garner popular audiences while at the same time engaging in substantial political and social... more
Since the release of "Do the Right Thing" in 1989, Spike Lee has established himself as a cinematic icon. Lee's mostly independent films garner popular audiences while at the same time engaging in substantial political and social commentary. He is arguably the most accomplished African American filmmaker in cinematic history, and his breakthrough paved the way for the success of many other African Americans in film.
This examination of Spike Lee's oeuvre shows how Lee's films, from "She's Gotta Have It" through "Red Hook Summer," address crucial social issues such as racism, paranoia, and economic exploitation in a formally inventive manner. The book argues that Lee uses excess in his films to intervene in issues of philosophy, politics, and art. It contends that it is impossible to watch a Spike Lee film in the way that one watches a typical Hollywood film. By forcing observers to recognize their unconscious enjoyment of violence, paranoia, racism, sexism, and oppression, Lee's films prod spectators to see differently and to confront their own excess. In the process, his films reveal what is at stake in desire, interpersonal relations, work, and artistic creation itself.
This examination of Spike Lee's oeuvre shows how Lee's films, from "She's Gotta Have It" through "Red Hook Summer," address crucial social issues such as racism, paranoia, and economic exploitation in a formally inventive manner. The book argues that Lee uses excess in his films to intervene in issues of philosophy, politics, and art. It contends that it is impossible to watch a Spike Lee film in the way that one watches a typical Hollywood film. By forcing observers to recognize their unconscious enjoyment of violence, paranoia, racism, sexism, and oppression, Lee's films prod spectators to see differently and to confront their own excess. In the process, his films reveal what is at stake in desire, interpersonal relations, work, and artistic creation itself.
Research Interests:
This book studies Lynch’s talent for blending the bizarre and the normal to emphasize the odd nature of normality itself. Hollywood is often criticized for distorting reality and providing escapist fantasies, but in Lynch’s movies,... more
This book studies Lynch’s talent for blending the bizarre and the normal to emphasize the odd nature of normality itself. Hollywood is often criticized for distorting reality and providing escapist fantasies, but in Lynch’s movies, fantasy becomes a means through which the viewer is encouraged to build a revolutionary relationship with the world.
Considering the filmmaker’s entire career, the book examines Lynch’s play with fantasy and traces the political, cultural, and existential impact of his unique style. Each chapter discusses the idea of impossibility in one of Lynch’s films, including the critically acclaimed "Blue Velvet" and "The Elephant Man"; the densely plotted "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive"; the cult favorite "Eraserhead"; and the commercially unsuccessful "Dune." The book breaks from traditional film theory to engage directly the thought of Freud, Lacan, and Hegel. By taking Lynch’s weirdness as his point of departure, the book reveals Lynch to be source of a new and radical conception of fantasy.
Considering the filmmaker’s entire career, the book examines Lynch’s play with fantasy and traces the political, cultural, and existential impact of his unique style. Each chapter discusses the idea of impossibility in one of Lynch’s films, including the critically acclaimed "Blue Velvet" and "The Elephant Man"; the densely plotted "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive"; the cult favorite "Eraserhead"; and the commercially unsuccessful "Dune." The book breaks from traditional film theory to engage directly the thought of Freud, Lacan, and Hegel. By taking Lynch’s weirdness as his point of departure, the book reveals Lynch to be source of a new and radical conception of fantasy.
Research Interests:
Christopher Nolan began his career as an independent filmmaker, making his first feature, Following (1998), over the course of a year while he worked to procure financing. Ten years later, he directed Hollywood’s top money earner for... more
Christopher Nolan began his career as an independent filmmaker, making his first feature, Following (1998), over the course of a year while he worked to procure financing. Ten years later, he directed Hollywood’s top money earner for the year, The Dark Knight (2008). Despite this dramatic change of fortune, the central idea in Nolan’s filmmaking remains the same. From his first hit Memento (2000) and his first mainstream film Insomnia (2002) to his entry in the superhero genre with Batman Begins (2005) and his historical drama The Prestige (2006), Nolan focuses on the role that deceit plays in structuring social relations and in constituting an ethical position. As his films illustrate, there is no society nor ethics outside of lying, and by analyzing the role that the lie plays in social relations, he establishes an ethics of the lie that he distinguishes from both an ethics based on truth and the bald promotion of self-interest through lying. Though the films demonstrate the ubiquity of deceit, they also propose a specific form of lie as ethical. This lie, like that of the cinema itself, reveals itself as the source of truth, whereas the pathological lie, the lie that serves self-interest, necessarily appeals to a truth that it distorts. The Fictional Christopher Nolan shows how Nolan’s films develop the ethics of the lie, and it argues that this ethics is the appropriate position for the cinema.
Research Interests:
Exploring the emergence of a societal imperative to enjoy ourselves, this book argues that we are in the midst of a large-scale transformation--a shift from a society oriented around prohibition (i.e., the notion that one cannot just do... more
Exploring the emergence of a societal imperative to enjoy ourselves, this book argues that we are in the midst of a large-scale transformation--a shift from a society oriented around prohibition (i.e., the notion that one cannot just do as one pleases) to one oriented around enjoyment. McGowan identifies many of the social ills of American culture today as symptoms of this transformation: the sense of disconnection, the increase in aggression and violence, widespread cynicism, political apathy, incivility, and loss of meaning. Discussing these various symptoms, he examines various texts from film, literature, popular culture, and everyday life. Paradoxically, The End of Dissatisfaction? shows how the American cultural obsession with enjoying ourselves actually makes it more difficult to do so.
This series of interviews provides an introduction both to Hegel's philosophy and to the new book on Hegel entitled "Emancipation After Hegel." They were created, filmed, and edited by Ryan Nordle. Part I:... more
This series of interviews provides an introduction both to Hegel's philosophy and to the new book on Hegel entitled "Emancipation After Hegel." They were created, filmed, and edited by Ryan Nordle.
Part I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj-5N_7po70&t=6s
Part II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gip8lbWn91k&t=3s
Part III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8htpLEvLNT8
Part IV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HshUD6UgZNQ
Part V: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPHnN5QjqQQ
Part I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj-5N_7po70&t=6s
Part II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gip8lbWn91k&t=3s
Part III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8htpLEvLNT8
Part IV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HshUD6UgZNQ
Part V: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPHnN5QjqQQ
Research Interests:
A discussion on Lisa DeLay's Spark My Muse podcast about Capitalism and Desire
Research Interests:
Donald Trump is self-evidently a figure of excess. His success as a presidential candidate stemmed not just from the excessive enjoyment that he offered his supporters but also from the way that he characterized them as lacking. Taking... more
Donald Trump is self-evidently a figure of excess. His success as a presidential candidate stemmed not just from the excessive enjoyment that he offered his supporters but also from the way that he characterized them as lacking. Taking stock of the relationship between lack and excess reveals not only why Trump succeeded but also why the rapacious capitalism that he represents continues to triumph. In this lecture, Todd McGowan explains the model for understanding this relationship, which comes from Orson Welles's classic film "Citizen Kane."
Research Interests:
An Interview with Tracy Morgan with the New Books in Psychoanalysis podcast about the book Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets (2016)