Rat (Animal series) by Jonathan BurtThe rat has been described as the shadow of the human. In this fascinating account of the rat in history, myth, and culture, Jonathan Burt traces the contradictory human relationship with rats from the first archaeological finds to the genetically engineered rats of the present day. He explores the representation of rats in the arts and sciences, religion and myth, and psychoanalysis and medicine, and shows the complex range of human attitudes that the rodent provokes.
By engaging closely with the work of Richard Francis Burton (1821-90), the iconic nineteenth-century imperial spy, explorer, anthropologist and translator, "Postcolonialism, Psychoanalysis and Burton "explores the White Man's 'imperial fantasies', and the ways in which the many metropolitan discourses to which Burton contributed drew upon and reinforced an intimate connection between fantasy and power in the space of Empire.
Louis Althusser is perhaps better remembered for strangling his wife to death during a fit of temporary insanity than for most of his writings (with the possible exception of his essay on the "ideological state apparatus," an explication of normalizing social institutions that has become standard fare in academic postmodernism), but he was one of the key figures in postwar French philosophy. Writings on Psychoanalysis is a collection of essays, article drafts, and correspondence that displays the extent of his intellectual grappling with Freud's writings and with contemporary psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan, a former friend whom Althusser would gradually come to view as a "magnificent and pitiful Harlequin." (Two of the pieces here deal with the 1980 conference at which Althusser vehemently broke with Lacan, ostensibly over the latter's stifling position of dominance among their colleagues.) Writings on Psychoanalysis is a bit heavy-going and theoretical in places, but of unique historical interest.
The history of psychoanalysis in 50 countries shows the relationship between psychoanalysis and other disciplines, with entries discussing writers, philosophers, literary movements and historical events.
