Research Catalog

Title

The phantom of the ego : modernism and the mimetic unconscious / Nidesh Lawtoo.

Author

Lawtoo, Nidesh.

Publication

East Lansing : Michigan State University Press, [2013].

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 366 pages; 23 cm.

Summary

The Phantom of the Ego is the first comparative study that shows how the modernist account of the unconscious anticipates contemporary discoveries about the importance of mimesis in the formation of subjectivity. Rather than beginning with Sigmund Freud as the father of modernism, Nidesh Lawtoo starts with Friedrich Nietzsche's antimetaphysical diagnostic of the ego, his realization that mimetic reflexes--from sympathy to hypnosis, to contagion, to crowd behavior--move the soul, and his insistence that psychology informs philosophical reflection. Through a transdisciplinary, comparative reading of landmark modernist authors like Nietzsche, Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, and Georges Bataille, Lawtoo shows that, before being a timely empirical discovery, the "mimetic unconscious" emerged from an untimely current in literary and philosophical modernism. -- Publisher website.

Series Statement

Studies in violence, mimesis, and culture

Uniform Title

Studies in violence, mimesis, and culture.

Subjects

• Literature > Philosophy
• Mimesis
• Modernism (Literature)
• Ego (Psychology) in literature

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Pathos of distance -- Mimetic patho(-)logies -- Ancient quarrels, modern reconciliations -- The mimetic unconscious -- Diagnostic program -- Chapter I. Nietzsche's mimetic patho(-)logy : from antiquity to modernity -- The phantom -- The logos of sympathy -- Beyond the rivalry principle -- Nietzsche's Platonism -- Psycho-physiology of the modern soul -- Prophet of Nazism? -- Chapter 2. Conrad and the horror of modernity -- Apocalypse now in the classroom -- An outpost of regress -- Heart of darkness and the horror of mimesis -- Chapter 3. D.H. Lawrence and the dissolution of the ego -- Ghostly reappearances -- Primitivist participation -- The birth of the ideal ego -- Mass patho(-)logy reloaded -- Lawrence contra Freud -- Chapter 4. Bataille's mimetic communication -- Phantom matador -- Enlightening Fascist psychology -- Anthropological effervescence -- The Freudian triangle -- Sovereign communication, unconscious imitation -- The psychology of the future -- Coda. Mimetic theory revisited -- Modernism and mimetic theory -- The laughter of community -- The center does not hold -- Notes -- Bibliography - Index.

Call Number

JFE 13-8747

ISBN

• 9781611860962 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 1611860962 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 9781609173883 (ebook) (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2012049425

OCLC

829999328

Author

Lawtoo, Nidesh.

Title

The phantom of the ego : modernism and the mimetic unconscious / Nidesh Lawtoo.

Publisher

East Lansing : Michigan State University Press, [2013].

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Studies in violence, mimesis, and culture

Studies in violence, mimesis, and culture.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Research Call Number

JFE 13-8747