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A bold, systematic account of the role of repetition in shaping modern subjectivity for Kierkegaard, Freud, and Lacan.
Repetition and Subjectivity offers an in-depth exploration of the relationship between Kierkegaard's concept of repetition and the psychoanalytic one. Starting from the thesis that what lies at the heart of repetition is an ontological principle of duality, Bara Kolenc introduces four matrices of repetition: deflation, reformation, inflation, and formation. The fourth—formation—underlies the modern subject. While the contours of this scheme can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, Kierkegaard is the first to have articulated it fully, paving the way for Freud and Lacan to outline its logic most clearly. Rich and rigorous, Repetition and Subjectivity provides a new foundation for understanding modern subjectivity. Newly examining a range of philosophical and psychoanalytic concepts, from the Greek anámnesis (remembering) to the death drive and jouissance, Kolenc reveals repetition to be not simply a phenomenon but rather a central mechanism in forming the subject's relationship with reality.
"Repetition and Subjectivity is a truly extraordinary achievement of thinking through one of the most challenging and intriguing concepts to emerge at the site of contemporary philosophy, as well as psychoanalysis, with Lacan declaring repetition one of the 'four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis.' Kolenc takes us through different facets of this concept with clarity, precision, and intellectual boldness. This is a profoundly engaging book, filled with new and crucial insights at every turn." — Alenka Zupančič, author of Disavowal
"Lucidly written and incredibly readable, Repetition and Subjectivity puts repetition to work as a historical, spatial, and contemporary concept. Why, Bara Kolenc asks, does modernity keep repeating itself? Showing how Kierkegaard anticipates Freud, Kolenc argues that we can't quite lay modernity to rest, and perhaps we don't want to. Modernity functions like an otherworldly earworm in time, elevating muse-like figures—the poet, the thinker, the lover, and so on—to vain images of themselves, repeatedly. The subject serves as a willing dupe to this movement, and yet, Kolenc's notion of the 'duty,' as opposed to the 'command,' to repeat reinvigorates at least the minimal agency of the subject. Filled with 'a-ha!' moments, this book is sure to be seriously discussed and debated by scholars situated at the nexus of psychoanalysis and philosophy." — Cindy Zeiher, author of Stupidity and Psychoanalysis: Lacanian Perspectives on New Subjectivities and Social Form
Bara Kolenc is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana. She is the author of Figura dvojnika: Od komedije k psihozi and Ponavljanje in uprizoritev: Kierkegaard, psihoanaliza, gledališče, and coeditor, with Gregor Moder and Jurij Simoniti, of Master/s.
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
1. Repetition Stems from Duality
A Constitutive Difference
The Four Matrices of Repetition
2. Repetition and Exception: Kierkegaard and the Greeks
The Königstadt Theater
A Venture in Experimental Psychology
The Doublings of Gjentagelsen
The Score of Experiential Experiments
Mnéme, Anámnesis and the Doctrine of Metempsychosis
Memory, Oblivion, and the Constitution of the Soul, or "Virtue Is Free": The Myth of Er
A Moment, Transition
The Choice of Life: False Hope and the Melancholy of Remembrance, the Comfort of Habits, or the Risk of Exception?
Repetition Is a New Category Yet to Be Discovered
3. Repetition as a Fundamental Concept: Freud and Lacan
Repetition Compulsion: The Three Theoretical Trajectories
A Small, Private Ceremonial
Erinnerung, Wiederholung
Repression and the Structure of Substitution
The Topography and the Dynamics of Repression
The Metapsychological Puzzle and the Death Drive
The Paradigm of Enjoyment
Recollection Is Not Reminiscence, and Life Is Not a Dream
Duality of the Real
(De)Montage of the Drive: Vorstellungsrepräsentanz
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index