Th. 3e cycle--Psychol.--Paris 5, 1986.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Queen's University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

This paper examines how the protagonist of Gravity’s Rainbow, Tyrone Slothrop, seeks subjective fixity in the historical and postmodern sublime. Using an approach that draws upon the theories of Freud, Lacan, and Zizek, the essay argues that while Slothrop indulges his own paranoia and commits acts of increasing perversion to assert self, these attempts actually blur the lines of identity instead of presenting an autonomous being.

Texte remanié de: Thesis Ph. D.--Washington, D.C.--Georgetown university. / Notes bibliogr.

This essay offers an intellectual history of the feud between the Frankfurt School philosophers Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse. In the competitive space of their debate, both thinkers attempted to redefine the spiritual experience and practice of love in a modern society. While a criterion for both Fromm and Marcuse was that love must be politically and historically radical, their different visions of that historical radicalism - exemplified in their 1955 debate in Dissent, and the two texts published immediately after their debate, Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization (1955) and Fromm’s The Art of Loving - parted ways at the idea of perversion. Perversion became a central procedure in Marcuse’s praxis of a real “outlawed” love that could negate modernity’s excessive sociability of guilt. For Fromm, perversion remained a “spiritual” form of regression away from love and maturity that he likened to violence. In both instances, the memory of German fascism was key to the (un)productive mistranslation of their ideas on love and perversion. / text

This text seeks to provide an account of the subject as a consumer of mass-media. As such, the contemporary consumer must interact with corporate entities as socio-cultural institutions that enable a self-administration of gratification. The case under discussion is that of the Walt Disney Company, which is perhaps the most iconic purveyor of consumable media in the world. It is argued that the Walt Disney Company is structurally perverse, that the gratification of the Disney consumer is achieved at their expense, and that this expense is to the benefit of Disney commercially and structurally as a major socio-cultural institution. This text makes use of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, film and cultural studies, and the industrial-organisational history of the Walt Disney Company to create an account of the subject's interactions within the apparatus of Disney media. The account of consumerism constructed within this text is organised by a synthesis of several theoretical constructs: the animated homunculus, the regressive cinematic apparatus and the Disney consumerist utopia. The homunculus refers to a point of contact for the subject's gratification. It is a fetishistic device used in animated films to create a focal point for the viewer's desire and identifications. This operates within the subject's relation to the screen as apparatus, which in the case of Disney is demonstrated to be regressive in its narrative structure and stylistic content. The regressive pleasures of Disney media support a system and economy of gratification that crystallizes in Disney as a commercial entity. The ideological and structural core of the Disney entity is demonstrated to be a utopian vision of consumerism and self-administration of gratification. The creation of socio-cultural structures that enable the subject to self-administrate their gratification is shown to be related to the problem of addiction; a dependency on consumables and consumption itself. Together these concepts create a holistic account of Disney as an object of study, as both commercial entity, visual medium and cultural institution.

Scholarship on David Foster Wallace understandably tends to focus on addiction in his novel Infinite Jest, as well as on his stated desire for a literary movement that transcends the recursive, ironic loop of the postmodern. This essay, however, explores issues of trauma and perversion in Wallace's fiction – primarily beginning with Infinite Jest, chronologically speaking – demonstrating Wallace's concern with the freedom of choice. A palpable friction exists between conservatism and sexual taboos, and this friction characterizes much, if not most, of Wallace's fictional oeuvre. A principally psychoanalytic reading of the sexual elements at play in Infinite Jest, as well as in several stories from Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and Oblivion, cultivates a more thorough understanding of the addiction theme present in his work.

[pt] Esta dissertação investiga o estatuto conceitual da perversão em psicanálise. Partindo dos destinos que o termo tem hoje em diferentes vertentes da teorização psicanalítica, suas raízes são buscadas na apropriação médica das condutas sexuais que teve seu apogeu na segunda metade do século XIX. Valoriza-se as transformações que o campo semântico do termo perversão sofreu através da obra de Freud, distinguindo-se três aspectos do tema e suas especificidades psicanalíticas: a sexualidade que foge à lógica da genitalidade, o papel diagnóstico do termo e o caráter moral que encerra. / [en] This dissertation investigates the conceptual status of perversion in psychoanalysis. Starting from current connotations of the term in different trends of psychoanalytical theorization, its origins are sought in the medical appropriation of sexual conduct that had its culmination during the second half of the 19th century. The transformations suffered by the semantic field of the term perversion through Freud´s work are put in relief, and three aspects of the topic are distinguished in their psychoanalytical specificity: the sexuality that evades genitality, the diagnostic role of the term and the moral tone it holds.

Inutile de rappeler la prééminence du regard dans les oeuvres d’Alain Robbe-Grillet etparticulièrement dans Le Voyeur, La Jalousie et Instantanés qui forment le corpus du présenttravail. En apparence, l’auteur se contente de formuler très objectivement la subjectivitéhumaine. Et voilà que l’oeil de la concupiscence charnelle vient entamer cet ordre parfait,géométrique que l’on aurait cru inaltérable. L’objectif de ce travail est justement de montrerque l’oeil de l’arpenteur géomètre dissimule celui du pervers, à la recherche de la jouissance àtravers le regard.La première partie de ce travail, « Montage du regard », analyse les sujets regardantset les sujets/objets regardés dans leur diversité. La volonté de maintenir la distance entreregardeur et regardé et d’instaurer un regard distant est remise en question par tous lesprocédés textuels confirmant la présence d’une subjectivité qui regarde. Une subjectivité quiregarde, mais qui est aussi perverse. C’est ce que tente de montrer la deuxième partie,« Regard pervers et jouissance ». Il s’agit en fait non seulement d’étudier la présence effectivedu voyeur dans ces trois oeuvres, mais aussi de l’approcher dans sa diversité. La troisièmepartie, « Répétition et jouissance », vient confirmer la présence du voyeur pervers, toujours àla recherche de la jouissance par la ressaisie du spectacle convoité, d’où la présence de figuresobsédantes en leitmotiv.Notre approche sera une pure recherche formelle : analyser le regard, c’est mettre enévidence son fonctionnement textuel, par le moyen de la linguistique et de la stylistique. Ellecontribuera à élaborer une nouvelle lecture du regard chez Robbe-Grillet. / It is needless to mention the supremacy of one particular feature in Alain Robbe-Grillet’s works; namely, the look as it is particularly found in Le Voyeur, La Jalousie andInstantanés. These 3 works serve as the corpus for the research at stake. In appearance, andquite objectively, the author seems to be simply expressing human subjectivity. But therecome along eye of lust, altering every perfect geometrical order one could have noticed upuntil now. The goal of this work is to actually unveil the fact that the eye of the surveyor, thegeometer, is only an artifact dissimulating a perverted eye constantly in search of carnalpleasure through the look.The first part of this work, titled “Montage du Regard” ‘The optic setting’, is ananalysis of the observer and of the elements which are observed as diverse as they may be.The will to keep a distance between the observer and the element which a observed isconstantly questioned through the presence of textual elements that clearly reveal asubjectivity in the act of looking at a particular element. A subjectivity that observes, butwhich is also perverted. This is fully analyzed in the second part of the research, “Regardpervers et jouissance” ‘A perverse eye and a sensual pleasure’, which not only analyses theactual presence of the voyeur in the three works mentioned earlier, but also attempts toapproach him and tackle all his diverse aspects. The third part of this study “Répétition etjouissance” ‘Repetition and sensual pleasure’ reaffirms the presence of a perverted observer,always in search for carnal pleasure through the recapture of the coveted show. This furtherexplains the presence of obsessive scenes in a leitmotiv.Our approach in this study is based on a formal analysis of the look. Its goal is tohighlight its textual functioning thanks to linguistic and stylistic means, which will lead theway to a new reading and reconsideration of the look in Robbe-Grillet’s works.

Dickens formule un projet de la mémoire qui s’étend sur plusieurs de ses romans publiés entre 1840 et1870. Cette dimension de son œuvre se place entre les deux pôles de la memoria – une forme institutionnalisée de la mémoire technique chez les classiques et les médiévaux – et une mémoire subjective, proustienne. Les romans étudiés s’articulent autour d’une mise en scène de cette combinaison à travers laquelle les deux sujets de l’individu et de la société sont liés aux thèmes de la Loi, du savoir, et du désir. Ils sont autant de « livres de la mémoire » qui font système de l’univers psychique et social représentés en mettant en œuvre les outils métaphoriques et logiques propres à l’art et aux phénomènes mnémoniques.Cependant, ce système de la mémoire correspond aussi bien à ce qui organise les données du réel qu’à ce qui les perturbe. Ainsi, il constitue une manière de représenter tant l’effort de symbolisation que ce qui l’entrave, le subvertit ou le pervertit. Les personnages du roman sont pris entre les deux pôles de l’ordre et de la discipline, d’un côté, et du choc traumatique qui sème le chaos, de l’autre. L’évolution de ce parcours de la représentation correspond à la poursuite du processus de subjectivation que les personnages de Dickens traversent, allant du premier moment de la sujétion à la Loi symbolique au dernier moment de l’accès au savoir ou à la vérité, une révolution subjective. / Dickens formulates a project of memory which extends over several of his novels published between1840 and 1870. This dimension of his work is to be situated between the two poles of memoria – aninstitutionalized form of technical memory developed during the classic and medieval periods – and asubjective, Proustian memory. The novels studied here are built on an enactment of this combinationthrough which the agencies of the individual and society are related to the themes of Law, knowledge,and desire. They are “books of memory” that totalize the psychic and social worlds represented infiction by using metaphorical and logical material peculiar to the art of memory and to mnemonicphenomena.However, this system of memory corresponds to that which orders the coordinates of reality as to thatwhich disturbs them. It is a way of representing the effort of symbolization as well as the factor thatimpedes, subverts, or perverts it. The characters are placed between the two poles of order anddiscipline, on one side, and traumatic shock leading to disorder, on the other. The evolution of this lineof representation corresponds to the process of subjectivization that Dickens’s characters undergo,moving from a first moment of subjection to the symbolic Law to an ultimate moment of access toknowledge or truth, a real subjective revolution.