Taking Back Desire
A Psychoanalytic Approach to Queerness and Neoliberalism on Screen
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Book Presentation:
Taking Back Desire studies film, television and video art texts through a Lacanian prism to restore a sense of queer as troubling identity and resistance to neoliberal forms of inclusion.
James Lawrence Slattery illuminates how the framing of desire, identity, enjoyment, resistance and knowledge contribute to the investment in neoliberal formations of being and success, despite the corrosive effects neoliberalism has had for much of society. The book does not read queerness on screen as a discernible group of characters or narrative formulas, but as a point that meaning fails in the visual and temporal field. Examining the interrelation of the real, the imaginary, and the symbolic in contemporary politics and contemporary media, Slattery investigates how a diverse selection of moving image texts forge queerness as a relationship to the lack, while crucially resisting the creation of a new or definitive ‘canon’.
Taking Back Desire will be essential reading for academics and scholars of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, queer theory, late capitalism, film, television and media studies, sexuality studies, critical race theory, cultural studies and feminist theory.
About the Author:
James Lawrence Slattery completed their PhD in English and American Studies from the University of Manchester in 2023, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. They also hold a master's degree in Film Aesthetics with distinction from the University of Oxford, formally organised the Manchester Queer Research Network, and have published essays and reviews in academic journals, edited collections and cultural publications. Their work investigates the moving image and visual culture to rethink identity and subjectivity in late-stage capitalism.
Press Reviews:
"In an era of rainbow capitalism, James Lawrence Slattery’s Taking Back Desire reasserts the conceptual specificity and radical potential of queer. Crucially, Slattery addresses queerness not at the referential level – where an emphasis on representation might too easily be assimilated to the politics of identity and commodity – but in a variety of audio-visual strategies across diverse media. Taking Back Desire affirms that queerness cannot be precisely located or delimited to a specific practice, but seeks its resonance in alignments between the socially abject and the aesthetically disjunctive that threaten to destabilise the logic of neoliberalism and its future-oriented temporalities. Combining erudite scholarship, meticulous analysis and admirably lucid prose, Taking Back Desire offers engaging and vital readings of contemporary culture – with the discussions of Sharp Objects and 120 BPM offering particular standout moments – to insist upon the renewed and enduring necessity of bringing together screen media, psychoanalysis and queerness to address the contemporary political scene." - Ben Tyrer, Lecturer in Film Theory, Middlesex University, London, UK, author of Out of the Past: Lacan and Film Noir
"Taking Back Desire represents a monumental step forward in the understanding of the relationship between psychoanalysis and queer theory, especially as evidenced on the screen. James Lawrence Slattery provides a breathtaking series of analyses that show how a psychoanalytic queer theoretical approach can uncover radical insights where we wouldn’t necessarily expect to find them. It’s a book not to be missed for anyone interested in how to think about what we’re watching today." -Todd McGowan, University of Vermont, author of Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets
'In an era of rainbow capitalism, James Lawrence Slattery’s Taking Back Desire reasserts the conceptual specificity and radical potential of queer. Crucially, Slattery addresses queerness not at the referential level – where an emphasis on representation might too easily be assimilated to the politics of identity and commodity – but in a variety of audio-visual strategies across diverse media. Taking Back Desire affirms that queerness cannot be precisely located or delimited to a specific practice, but seeks its resonance in alignments between the socially abject and the aesthetically disjunctive that threaten to destabilise the logic of neoliberalism and its future-oriented temporalities. Combining erudite scholarship, meticulous analysis and admirably lucid prose, Taking Back Desire offers engaging and vital readings of contemporary culture – with the discussions of Sharp Objects and 120 BPM offering particular standout moments – to insist upon the renewed and enduring necessity of bringing together screen media, psychoanalysis and queerness to address the contemporary political scene'. Ben Tyrer, Lecturer in Film Theory, Middlesex University, UK, author of Out of the Past: Lacan and Film Noir
'Taking Back Desire represents a monumental step forward in the understanding of the relationship between psychoanalysis and queer theory, especially as evidenced on the screen. James Lawrence Slattery provides a breathtaking series of analyses that show how a psychoanalytic queer theoretical approach can uncover radical insights where we wouldn’t necessarily expect to find them. It’s a book not to be missed for anyone interested in how to think about what we’re watching today'. Todd McGowan, University of Vermont, USA, author of Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets
See the publisher website: Routledge
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