Monthly Archives: October 2010
On Aesthetic Theory
Aesthetic theories seem to fail insofar as they forgo their obligation to accept themselves as subjective. Kant seems least to attempt to disguise this fact. Judgment as a word retains its true subjective uncertainty. As used in court (and at … Continue reading
On the History of Consciousness
On the Origin of Species (1859) Capital, Volume 1 (1867) The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) The General Theory of Relativity (1915) Course in General Linguistics (1916) – Lectures 1906-1911 Quantum Uncertainty (Heisenberg) (1927)
Teaching Benjamin
“The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility” (reprinted in my Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd Edition) represents my first exposure to the work of Walter Benjamin. Since I first read it over the summer, … Continue reading
Lacanian Mathematics
Lacan asserts that language is a formulation only of “the correlations between signifier and signifier” with no recourse to any referent, either in the real world or at the core of our self, both of which are cut off from … Continue reading
A Note on Lacan’s Syntax
In his essay, “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious” (excerpted in my Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd Edition), Lacan explores the ways in which the signifier takes its meaning solely as it relates to other signifiers. … Continue reading
Lacan’s Mirror, Letter
Through his synthesis of Saussurian linguistics and Freudian psychology, Lacan attempts to give us a more complete and nuanced picture of both systems of thought as well as of the nature of our own existence. I think it is important … Continue reading
Freud, Bakhin, and the Human Dream
The following represents a one-page tutorial I prepared for the graduate-level section of my Contemporary Literary Theory Course. I have reproduced it here as means of keeping the blog in continued conversation with itself. The issues addressed represent continuations of … Continue reading
