This book explores how Jacques Lacan has influenced Black Studies from the 1950s to the present day, and in turn how a Black Studies framework challenges the topographies of Lacanianism in its understanding of race. David Marriott examines how a contemporary Black Studies perspective might respond to the psychoanalysis of race by taking advantage of the recent revitalization of Lacanianism in its speculative, metaphysical form. While the philosophical side of the debate makes a plea for a new universalism, this book proposes a Lacanian reassessment of the notion of race, a notion distinct from culture, language, religion, and identity. It argues that it is possible to re-establish the theoretical relation between capitalism, anti-blackness, and colonialism, by reassessing the links between Lacanian psychoanalysis and three main domains of black inquiry: mastery, knowledge, and embodiment. The book offers a strikingly original rereading of the place of Lacan in both Fanon Studies and Afro-pessimism. It will appeal to students and scholars of Black Studies, Cultural Studies, Critical Theory and Philosophy.

Examines both Lacan's influence on Black Studies and the challenge of Black Studies to Lacan and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Offers an important contribution to a growing body of scholarship operating at the intersection of psychoanalysis and 'race' and drawing on philosophy and cultural studies. Stages an encounter between Lacan's topology and the figure of blackness

Autorentext

David S. Marriott is Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy and African American Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, USA.

Inhalt
Part 1: Slave and Signifier.- Part 2: The X of X.- Part 3: Tell It Like It Is.