Shadow of the Other: Intersubjectivity and Gender in Psychoanalysis
Shadow of the Other is a discussion of how the individual has two sorts of relationships with an "other"--other beings, other individuals. The first regards the other as an entirely different being from oneself, but one which is still recognizable. The second understands and recognizes this other by its function as a repository of characteristics cast from oneself.
If you read or reread Freud, it is difficult not to find on a single page references to language: from speech to text, from slip of the tongue to word play, from letter to meaning-passing inevitably through the strange notion of literal meaning, that fascinated Freud. In short, the unconscious is linked to language. How could it be otherwise, if psychoanalysis is a cure through speech as indicated as early as 1881, by Fraülein Anna O.?
What kind of theoretical engagement can postcolonial theory have with psychoanalysis? Is psychoanalysis still a useful tool for understanding the cultural and psychological dimensions of colonial societies? What would it mean to truly place psychoanalysis in the service of postcolonial critique?
Jacques Lacan (1901–81) is arguably the most important psychoanalyst since Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the originator and founding father of psychoanalysis. Deeply controversial, Lacan’s work has transformed psychoanalysis, both as a theory of the unconscious mind and as a clinical practice. Over 50 per cent of the world’s analysts now employ Lacanian methods
Michel de Certeau, who died in 1986, was one of France's leading intellectuals and considered by many to be one of the most brilliant and sensitive minds. A perfect example of the ideal interdisciplinary scholar, he studied and taught in the fields of literary criticism, anthropology, sociology, history, theology, and psychoanalysis. All these disciplines inform the essays of this volume.
