The American Optic

Mikko Tuhkanen

Description

The American Optic charts new territory in the relationship of psychoanalysis to critical race studies. Focusing on the work of Richard Wright and Jacques Lacan, it explore the political and ethical implications of psychoanalysis for African American and other diasporic African cultural texts. Mikko Tuhkanen develops a theory of "racialization" that recasts the genealogy of the Western concept of racial difference as outlined by critical race theory, through the theory of the real, which Lacan developed in his later work. By engaging a wide array of resources—including the work of W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and Frantz Fanon, as well as nineteenth-century slave narratives and studies of blackface minstrelsy—Tuhkanen not only illuminates the unexpectedly rich connections between Lacanian psychoanalysis and black literary and cultural studies, but also demonstrates the ways in which the artistic and political traditions of the African diaspora allow us to reinvent the Lacanian ethics of becoming.
Acknowledgments

Introduction: "Richard, Jacques; Jacques, Richard"

1. A [B]igger's Place: Ȁ e "Racial" Subject in the White Symbolic Order

2. The Grimace of the Real: Of Paranoid Knowledge and Black(face) Magic

3. Unforeseeable Tragedies: Symbolic Change in Wright, Fanon, and Lacan

4. The Optical Trade: Through Southern Spectacles

5. Avian Alienation: Writing and Flying in Wright and Lacan

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Ethnic studies

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 02 juillet 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438427737
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

he American Optic Psycoanalysis, Critical Race heory, and Ricard Wrigt

M I K K O T U H K A N E N

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he American Optic

SUNY   P  C

Henry Sussman,editor

he American Optic

Psycoanalysis, Critical Race heory, and Ricard Wrigt

M I K KO T U H K A N E N

S T A T E U N I V E R S I T Y O F N E W Y O R K P R E S S

Cover image: David Levintal, Blackface series (a rear-view of a male minstrelsy figurine in overalls and a top at). Copyrigt © he David Levintal Studio.

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© 2009 State University of New York

All rigts reserved

Printed in te United States of America

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Tukanen, Mikko, 1967–  he American optic : psycoanalysis, critical race teory, and Ricard Wrigt / Mikko Tukanen.  p. cm.—(SUNY series in psycaonalysis and culture)  Includes bibliograpical references and index.  ISBN 978-1-4384-2763-8 (ardcover : alk. paper)  1. Racism—United States—History. 2. Race awareness—United States— History. 3. Psycoanalysis—United States. 4. Wrigt, Ricard, 1908–1960.  I. Title.  E185.6.T84 2009  308.800973—dc22  2008050715

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he wole American optic in terms of reality is based on te necessity of keeping black people out of it. We are nonexistent. Except according to teir terms, and teir terms are unacceptable. —James Baldwin in 1987

hus early I learned tat te point from wic a ting is viewed is of some importance. —Frederick Douglass in 1855

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Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction: “Ricard, Jacques; Jacques, Ricard”

C H A P T E R  A [B]igger’s Place: he “Racial” Subject in te Wite Symbolic Order

C H A P T E R  he Grimace of te Real: Of Paranoid Knowledge and Black(face) Magic

C H A P T E R  Unforeseeable Tragedies: Symbolic Cange in Wrigt, Fanon, and Lacan

C H A P T E R  he Optical Trade: hroug Soutern Spectacles

C H A P T E R  Avian Alienation: Writing and Flying in Wrigt and Lacan

Notes Bibliograpy Index

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