ルクレリウスとは誰か？

昨日やっとのこと採点が終わる。200人近い講義科目をもっているので時間がかかるのと、8月の初旬3泊ほど子供の野球合宿につきあったりしたので、こんな破目に。合宿ではほかのお父さんたちはもと野球部という方々。小生だけは草野球出身。ということでお父さんも監督やコーチにいじめられるなか、小生のプレイははなはだ無様。子供がそれを見て悲しい目をしているのにはかなり参った。ただ400メートルくらい走らされたのだが、かなり良いペースで完走できたので、コーチから「なにかやっているの？」と聞かれたので「毎日散歩しています」と正直に答える。しかし年少組のゲームのキャチャーをやらされて、眼鏡をかけているのでマスクをしないで捕球をしていたら、やはり普段練習している子供の球は存外に速く振りも鋭いので、ファール・チップを捕りそこない、その球が左の眼鏡に直撃した際には失明を覚悟するほどの痛みが。当然、眼鏡は大破、割れたレンズが目のすぐ脇に突き刺さる。かなりの出血。あと数ミリ場所がずれていたら失明もありえただろう。ともかく出血の直後は何も見えなかったのだが、ベンチの水道で洗ってみると視覚はあるので安心する・・・。

というような次第で採点を昨日は終日吉祥寺の研究室で。今年の珍解答のいくつか以下にお示しする。「クイア理論とはなにか？論じなさい」という問いに「バトラー、セジウィック、ルクレリウスらが提唱した理論・・・」という解答があり、思わずひとり研究室で「ルクレリウスって誰だよ？」とのけぞってしまう。あるいは同じ問いへの解答に「三浦玲一が提唱した理論で・・・」というのもあった（笑）。次の本を講義で参照したからであるのだが、これには笑った：

現代批評理論のすべて (ハンドブック・シリーズ)

エルトン・ジョンの歌詞の読解ではお世話になりました。

例のみすずの翻訳、アマゾンのランキングで一時「現代思想」で10位にまで上がったのだが、これってけっこう売れているのだろうか？いまは50位だけれども・・・。

ジュリエットからオランダ方面作戦のラフなプログラムがメールでくる。こんな感じ：

THE QUESTION OF THE POLITICAL IMAGINARY

10TH ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM OF THE JOURNAL (a) AND THE CALIFORNIA PSYCHOANALYTIC CIRCLE

October 9, 2010 • Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, The Netherlands

The ordinary course of the 19th century is that, when a … man of power meets a man of feeling, he kills him, exiles him, imprisons him, or humiliates him such that the other has the foolishness to die of grief over it.

• • Stendhal, The Red and the Black[1]

What is a ‘subject’ where politics is concerned, if the subject of the unconscious is shaped by its social and symbolic, not political and imaginary conflicts?

What is a ‘voice’ in politics today? Does a vote still matter (etymologically a ‘wish,’ ‘a vow’, ‘a promise’ or ‘a prayer’—a form of speech, therefore -- the vox populi). Or is whatever ‘talking heads’ on television news shows or on right wing talk radio decide what wins the day?

If we re-read the ‘radical leftist’ Marcuse today we find it hard to ignore how much his forceful critiques of ‘society’ and ‘the state’ still resonate – with political and economic conservatives. Indeed, Curtis’ BBC documentary notes that conservative politicians like Ronald Reagan rose to power by using the very slogans of the Marcuse-inspired student rebellions of the 1960s[2] (“Get the government off our backs!”) — rebellions that Reagan roundly condemned while stealing their rhetoric, thus having it both ways at once. When politics was seen as the art of exercising power, it was society’s task to moderate that exercise. By not focusing on the specific social relations society forbids or what acts a state actively exercises control over, mid 20th century leftist thinkers may have unwittingly opened the door to the individual-oriented conservative politics evident today. The central question for this conference thus becomes “What is the promise the Imaginary holds for politics today?” Is there a dialectic to the Imaginary that might reveal a new or invaluable resource for democracy in such a dialectic? Can the Imaginary be understood differently by both psychoanalysis and political theory in the light of say Lacan’s late work with the Imaginary, e.g., Le Sinthome?

We would like papers that address Freud’s and Lacan’s attempts to get a purchase on Imaginary politics: what does it mean for the form and fate of the Subject? For Lacan at least there is a subject that is transindividual.

But we also encourage systematic investigation of the approaches taken by antagonists of Freud and psychoanalysis who were equally concerned with these questions, like Marcuse, who have much to say that illuminates today’s trends.

If ‘society’ has any meaning at all, if the social link constitutes constraints on individual enjoyment taken at the expense of the other and its desire, then Marcuse’s own sustained attack on ‘society’ bears re-examination. Especially in the light of Lacan’s theories of social discourse, of the unconscious at work in it, and of Freud’s broader works on civilization and its discontents.

SPEAKERS

“The Death Drive of Revolution/Counter-Revolution:
Rereading of Jeffrey Mehlman’s Revolution and Repetition”
Fuhito Endo

Professor, English, Seikei University, Tokyo

"There is Nothing More Toxic than a Human Child. Pixar's Monsters Inc. as Social Fantasy"
Lilian Munk Rösing


Lektor, Litteraturvidenskab og Moderne Kultur, Copenhagen University

“Group Psychology and the Polyconstruction of the Ego”
Lyat Friedman

Assistant Professor, Gender Studies and Philosophy, Bar-Ilan University,Tel Aviv

“On ‘The Subject”
Dominiek Hoens, Researcher

Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, The Netherlands

"The Dude's Imagined Career Abides: Working Lives in 'The Big Lebowski' and 'Jackie Brown'"

Nathaniel Dektor

Assistant Professor

Ming Chuan University, International College, Taipei

“Television and ‘The Public Sphere’: Of Absolutism”

Daniel MacCannell

Researcher Institute for Irish and Scottish Studies

University of Aberdeen, Scotland

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • -

[1] « La marche ordinaire du XIXe siècle est que, quand un être puissant … rencontre un homme de cœur, il le tue, l’exile, l’emprisonne ou l’humilie tellement que l’autre a la sottise d’en mourir de douleur ». (Stendhal, Le Rouge et le noir, p. 148)

[2] It is crucial to note here that the student rebellions of the 1960s were for greater justice and civil rights, as well as for ending an unjust war—not really to ‘get the government off our backs!’ The latter was tied much more closely to the drug culture that grew alongside of but was not necessarily part of political student movements.