This thesis presents an interweaving of the discourse surrounding Colin McCahon and Ralph Hotere, the philosophy of art, and Lacanian psychoanalysis. In so doing, a Lacanian understanding of subjectivity, painting, discourse, and their interrelationships is elaborated in order to generate some new perspectives on, specifically, the work of McCahon and Hotere, and related writing and testimony, and more generally, the practice of art history and art criticism in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In the first place, this project explains, develops, and applies a Lacanian model of subjectivity/meaning-making understood in terms of the figuring of desire. This formula models expressions of subjectivity/meaning-making in terms of the reciprocity obtaining between the agent-like, metaphoric precipitation and automatist, metonymic perpetuation of symptomatic formations or points de capiton in discourses of desire. Secondly, this study analyses the discourse comprising paintings by McCahon and Hotere, and related writing, from the perspective of two points de capiton – the key features of which are gathered under the rubrics ‘McCahon’s doubt’ and ‘Hotere’s reticence’. The thesis demonstrates that these two formations enliven the possibility of interpreting McCahon discourse and Hotere discourse, respectively, in terms of repeated and contradictory characterisations of McCahon as a visionary and a doubter, and of Hotere as eloquent and reticent. Furthermore, the thesis shows how, by virtue of their fixation on the symptomatic formations ‘McCahon’s doubt’ and ‘Hotere’s reticence’, respectively, McCahon and Hotere discourses bear witness to radically contingent affirmations of, or leaps of faith in, praxes of contradiction, thereby sustaining fantasies of the revelation of the reality and truth of the being and meaning of art subjects and art objects. The impossibility of objectively realising these fantasies testifies to the status of subjective desire as that which seeks only its own perpetuation or that finds fulfilment in endlessly missing its aim and, by the same token, in Lacanian terms, underscores the (structural and ethical) necessity of subjectively being in and as traversing fantasy.

This essay examines the love affair between the two main characters of Rut Hillarp’s novel Sindhia. It draws attention to the schism between the Surrealist version of love as an extatic-religious fusion of the sexes – that in a way marks the relationship – and the yet remarkable coolness between the two lovers. With the theories of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, I will show how the man and the woman project their unrealistic individual fantasies on each other, thus rendering impossible the Surrealist Meeting, with its road to an absolute reality. The Surrealist "l’amour fou", I will argue, is trapped in the ritualized "l’amor interruptus"; a lacanian term for a certain kind of love that wishes to conceal the fact that desire will never find its object. It does so by pretending that the object would be found if only love had been consummated (thus the reason love is never consummated, since, as Lacan puts it, the object, or the Thing, is never to be found). I will, in brief, argue that the love affair depicted in the novel in different ways tries to deal with the “lack-of-being” that marks the subject according to Lacan; the absolute distance to the desirable Thing.

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This thesis argues that desire is a major theme in Samuel Beckett's dramatic works. Central to our analysis is Jacques Lacan's concept of the Desire for the Other, as the outcome of the human subject's division. We will investigate how desire is expressed at the level of Beckett's characters' utterance. The characters' attempts at and inability to achieve a reconciliation with their speech correlate with the impossibility of reunifying Lacan's split subject. The first part of our discussion focuses upon desire-as-paradox--the lack of will to desire and the continuation of desire--in Not I, Footfalls and Krapp's Last Tape, whereas Rockaby and That Time are indicative of the regression of desire leading toward the characters' death. The second part emphasizes the dramatic presentation of these plays, except for Footfalls. It will become clear that desire affects the performance and the audience, thus preventing them from attaining a unified perception of self and other.

Thomas Pynchon’s novel, The Crying of Lot 49, details Oedipa Maas’ quest to unearth a possibly centuries-old clandestine mail system, the Trystero. Oedipa is immersed in notions of sociality and she must navigate the social landscape, searching for clues as to the existence of the social system. In her quest she assumes the role of a detective who searches for meaning, as she looks for clues and questions others who might potentially be privy to the secrets of the Trystero. She necessarily performs the process of symbolic exchange with those she encounters in an attempt at ascertaining some greater meaning within the world that she thinks might lie behind the Trystero. In this, the nature of the circulation of meaning is revealed as a cultural construct.

The study aims to define xenophobia, which is attached such meanings as &lsquo / hostility against foreign people&rsquo / or &lsquo / fear of alien people&rsquo / , through the main concepts of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. The &lsquo / fear of/hostility against foreign people&rsquo / is treated, in this study, by references to the subject-object relation formulated in Psychoanalysis. The study aims to give an original account of the spiral of subject-object through such concepts as &lsquo / polarization&rsquo / , &lsquo / annexation&rsquo / , and &lsquo / ergonomy&rsquo / . Under the light of this account, an attempt follows to recast the term xenophobia. The analysis focuses on three main historical lines, to check the account of the term set down in the study, as well as to fortify and clarify its limits: Capitalism, industrialization and nationalism. As a conclusion, the study maintains that both xenos (stranger) and fear dwell within the subjective field. Accordingly, the study concludes that xenophobia originates not from the &lsquo / primary qualities&rsquo / of the object of fear/hatred (xenophile), but from the deepest ranges of the subjectivity of fear/hatred (xenophobe). Hence, it is asserted that xenophobia is a subjective delirium, rather than an objective form

This thesis explores the limitations of determinism in regards to music, media, and the constitution of subjectivity. Its methodological resource is derived from a synthesis between media ecology, social psychoanalysis, and music semiotics. The case studies describe the incorporation of nostalgia into popular music ballads, the domestication of the phonograph, the contemporary trend of mashups, and the studio technique of backmasking. The conclusion asks that we readjust our approach to music, media, and subjectivity to account for the possibility of creative acts that are bound within a network of determinants. I use, finally, the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to explore the body as a primary site of indeterminate mediation, which renders possible for the subject a potential of creative embodied expression.

This thesis explores the limitations of determinism in regards to music, media, and the constitution of subjectivity. Its methodological resource is derived from a synthesis between media ecology, social psychoanalysis, and music semiotics. The case studies describe the incorporation of nostalgia into popular music ballads, the domestication of the phonograph, the contemporary trend of mashups, and the studio technique of backmasking. The conclusion asks that we readjust our approach to music, media, and subjectivity to account for the possibility of creative acts that are bound within a network of determinants. I use, finally, the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to explore the body as a primary site of indeterminate mediation, which renders possible for the subject a potential of creative embodied expression.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Women's Studies, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 127-134).

Heidelberg, Univ., Diss., 1999.