Critical Theory Between Klein and Lacan: A Dialogue

by Mari Ruti, Amy Allen, Esther Rashkin (Editor)

Critical Theory Between Klein and Lacan explores convergences and divergences in the psychoanalytic theories of Melanie Klein and Jacques Lacan, with a special focus on the implications of their work for critical theory, broadly construed. The book is co-authored in the form of a dialogue between Amy Allen, a prominent representative of Frankfurt School critical theory with expertise on Klein, and Mari Ruti, a leading Lacanian critical theorist.

Klein and Lacan are among the two most important and influential psychoanalytic theorists after Freud. Their work has profound implications for how we understand subjectivity, intersubjectivity, autonomy, agency, desire, affect, trauma, history, and the potential for individual and social change. Allen and Ruti offer distinctive interpretations of Klein and Lacan that not only bring out their complexities but also highlight productive points of convergence where most psychoanalytic and critical theorists see irreconcilable differences. The book is organized around key themes that cut across and through the work of Klein and Lacan, culminating in an assessment of the implications of their theories for thinking about politics.

Genres: Theory, Psychoanalysis

268 pages, Hardcover

Published August 8, 2019

About the author

Mari Ruti is Distinguished Professor of critical theory and of gender and sexuality studies at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada. She is an interdisciplinary scholar within the theoretical humanities working at the intersection of contemporary theory, continental philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, cultural studies, trauma theory, posthumanist ethics, and gender and sexuality studies.

Reviews

[Blaze-Pascal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing. I obviously had misconceptions of the work of Melanie Klein having only read of her a few times and tying her theory into some false notion of object relations. I think that a more astute position, unlike the one Lacan proposes in his seminars is to do what Mari Ruti and Amy Allen have done in this book: put Lacan in a dialectic with Melanie Klein rather than trying to dominate her through a Master-slave idea of who is superior. I think that the infant and the relationship with the mother is the foundational aspect for thinkers, as the ego only recreates this pattern through repetition throughout it's life. I find Klein's theory about the psychotic core of the infant in the paranoid-schizoid position fascinating, and how the depressive position is the moving through this. I also find it quite fascinating that this is not static. I will be using this book a lot for some writing I will be doing, as I am now recognizing that what I have been writing about is the death drive and jouissance. Inspiring work!

[javor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good dialogue between Amy Allen, a critical theorist integrating Klein with the Frankfurt School, and Mari Ruti, a post-Lacanian scholar and philosopher. Brings together Klein and Lacan (two psychoanalysts who are often seen as having an unbridgeable gulf between them) in surprising ways, without attempting to force a synthesis between the two. They have some very good insights, particularly in the chapter on Affect in my opinion. They tend not to be reductive when speaking of Klein or Lacan alone, but sometimes can simplify a bit in order to draw connections between the two, though this is not always a bad thing. In any case, a very insightful book that grounds Kleinian and Lacanian theory in politics and critical theory.

[leren_lezen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice! Whilst I still do not feel a lot of sympathy towards Melanie Klein's work, it was a nice introduction (for me) to her ideas. Connections between Lacan, Critical Theory and Kleinian Psychoanalysis were very nice, just like the way they were organised based on themes (ex: politics, creativity, anxiety, love).

[Colt Hutchinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing dialogue between Ruti and Allen. While many immediately reject that there could be an overlap between Lacan and Foucault, the authors are rather compelling.