Noëlle McAfee

One of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century, Julia Kristeva has been driving forward the fields of literary and cultural studies since the 1960s. This volume is an accessible, introductory guide to the main themes of Kristeva's work, including her ideas on:*semiotics and symbolism*abjection*melancholia*feminism*revolt.McAfee provides clear explanations of the more difficult aspects of Kristeva's theories, helpfully placing her ideas in the relevant theoretical context, be it literary theory, psychoanalysis, linguistics, gender studies or philosophy, and demonstrates the impact of her critical interventions in these areas.Julia Kristeva is the essential guide for readers who are approaching the work of this challenging thinker for the first time, and provides the ideal opportunity for those with more knowledge to re-familiarise themselves with Kristeva's key terms.

One of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century, Julia Kristeva has been driving forward the fields of literary and cultural studies since the 1960s. This volume is an accessible, introductory guide to the main themes of Kristeva's work, including her ideas on:*semiotics and symbolism*abjection*melancholia*feminism*revolt.McAfee provides clear explanations of the more difficult aspects of Kristeva's theories, helpfully placing her ideas in the relevant theoretical context, be it literary theory, psychoanalysis, linguistics, gender studies or philosophy, and demonstrates the impact of her critical interventions in these areas.Julia Kristeva is the essential guide for readers who are approaching the work of this challenging thinker for the first time, and provides the ideal opportunity for those with more knowledge to re-familiarise themselves with Kristeva's key terms.

How did woman come to be the underside and negation of modernity's ideals of progress, reason, and enlightenment? This quick immersion searches back in time and forward into the present to explore the conundrum: which came first, women's oppression or the metaphysical and debilitating notions of who and what women are, namely passive, emotional, weak, and irrational. Drawing on psychoanalysis and contemporary theory, this book explores how these notions can be overcome and how women can find and realize their own desire. ENDORSEMENTS No lle McAfee's quick immersion is of tremendous service to both newly emerging and long- time feminists. Writing in clear, precise, and compelling language, McAfee draws us into the too often side-stepped political engagement and intellectual contributions of the many women who fought for and contributed to the creation of feminist ideas and social and political transformations. McAfee weaves into this story a profoundly valuable analysis of the metaphysical ideas about the nature of reality that justified the oppression of women from the ancient Greeks to the present, and which clarifies the limitations placed on women's understanding of themselves as both desiring and ethical beings. Dorothea Olkowski, Professor of Philosophy and Director of Humanities, University of Colorado No lle McAfee provides an admirable and extremely useful mapping of the terrain of feminism and feminist theory, which does justice to the rich variety of styles and voices in feminism. Students will acquire a sense of the range and scope of feminism, while feminist scholars will be interested in McAfee's psychoanalytic reading of feminism and its critique of structural oppression. This will be a very welcome text to anyone who regularly teaches feminism. Mary C. Rawlinson, Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature, Stony Brook University This fast-dive into feminism is amazingly comprehensive, clear, and compelling. Readers will come away from the book well informed about sexism, the fraternal order, and women's resistance against them. McAfee has done an excellent job of distilling feminism into its essentials. Shannon Sullivan, Chair of Philosophy and Professor of Philosophy and Health Psychology at the University of North Carolina Charlotte

What is behind the upsurge of virulent nationalism and intransigent politics across the globe today? In Fear of Breakdown, Noëlle McAfee uses psychoanalytic theory to explore the subterranean anxieties behind current crises and the ways in which democratic practices can help work through seemingly intractable political conflicts. Working at the intersection of psyche and society, McAfee draws on psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott’s concept of the fear of breakdown to show how hypernationalism stems from unconscious anxieties over the origins of personal and social identities, giving rise to temptations to reify exclusionary phantasies of national origins.Fear of Breakdown contends that politics needs something that only psychoanalysis has been able to offer: an understanding of how to work through anxieties, ambiguity, fragility, and loss in order to create a more democratic politics. Coupling robust psychoanalytic theory with concrete democratic practice, Fear of Breakdown shows how a politics of working through can help counter a politics of splitting, paranoia, and demonization. McAfee argues for a new approach to deliberative democratic theory, not the usual philosopher-sanctioned process of reason-giving but an affective process of making difficult choices, encountering others, and mourning what cannot be had.

What is behind the upsurge of virulent nationalism and intransigent politics across the globe today? In Fear of Breakdown, Noëlle McAfee uses psychoanalytic theory to explore the subterranean anxieties behind current crises and the ways in which democratic practices can help work through seemingly intractable political conflicts. Working at the intersection of psyche and society, McAfee draws on psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott’s concept of the fear of breakdown to show how hypernationalism stems from unconscious anxieties over the origins of personal and social identities, giving rise to temptations to reify exclusionary phantasies of national origins.Fear of Breakdown contends that politics needs something that only psychoanalysis has been able to offer: an understanding of how to work through anxieties, ambiguity, fragility, and loss in order to create a more democratic politics. Coupling robust psychoanalytic theory with concrete democratic practice, Fear of Breakdown shows how a politics of working through can help counter a politics of splitting, paranoia, and demonization. McAfee argues for a new approach to deliberative democratic theory, not the usual philosopher-sanctioned process of reason-giving but an affective process of making difficult choices, encountering others, and mourning what cannot be had.

Political philosopher Noelle McAfee proposes a powerful new political theory for our post-9/11 world, in which an old pathology-the repetition compulsion-has manifested itself in a seemingly endless war on terror. McAfee argues that the quintessentially human desire to participate in a world with others is the key to understanding the public sphere and to creating a more democratic society, a world that all members can have a hand in shaping. But when some are effectively denied this participation, whether through trauma or terror, instead of democratic politics, there arises a political unconscious, an effect of desires unarticulated, failures to sublimate, voices kept silent, and repression reenacted. Not only is this condition undemocratic and unjust, it may lead to further trauma. Unless its troubles are worked through, a political community risks continual repetition and even self-destruction. McAfee deftly weaves together her experience as an observer of democratic life with an array of intellectual schemas, from poststructural psychoanalysis to Rawlsian and Habermasian democratic theories, as well as semiotics, civic republicanism, and American pragmatism. She begins with an analysis of the traumatic effects of silencing members of a political community. Then she explores the potential of deliberative dialogue and other "talking cures" and public testimonies, such as the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to help societies work through, rather than continually act out, their conflicts. Democracy and the Political Unconscious is rich in theoretical insights, but it is also grounded in the practical problems of those who are trying to process the traumas of oppression, terror, and brutality and create more decent and democratic societies. Drawing on a breathtaking range of theoretical frameworks and empirical observations, Democracy and the Political Unconscious charts a course for democratic transformation in a world sorely lacking in democratic practice.