Psychoanalysis, Philosophy and Myth in Contemporary Culture

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction: Aporia, the Sphinx, and the Hope that Life Will Make Sense

   • Angie Voela

   Pages 1-39

3. Ion’s Aporia: Just Another Oedipus?

   • Angie Voela

   Pages 41-71

4. Towards a New Anthropogony? Tron Revisited

   • Angie Voela

   Pages 73-106

5. Forget Antigone?

   • Angie Voela

   Pages 107-136

6. The Abyss of the Other’s Desire or Greek Myth for (Neoliberal) Children

   • Angie Voela

   Pages 137-181

7. The Search for Origin in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus

   • Angie Voela

   Pages 183-213

8. Conclusion: Aporia, Commemoration, Paramythia

   • Angie Voela

   Pages 215-221

9. Back Matter

   Pages 223-241

   PDF

This book examines the use of myth in contemporary popular and high culture, and proposes that the aporetic subject, the individual that ‘does not know’, is the ideal contemporary subject. Using several contemporary novels, films and theatrical plays that illustrate aporia – such as Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Riordan, 2007), Tron Legacy (Koninski, 2010), Welcome to Thebes (Buffini, 2010), The Photographers (Koundouros, 1998), Prometheus (2012) and Prometheus Retrogressing (Sfikas, 1998) – Angie Voela introduces common ground between Lacanian psychoanalysis and some of Freud’s most ardent critics, Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard, as well as the cultural philosopher Bernard Stiegler. These unprecedented systematic comparisons broaden the scope and impact of Lacanian psychoanalysis in inter-disciplinary debates of philosophy and culture and Voela argues that apart from dealing with the past, psychoanalysis must also deal more explicitly with the present and the future. She presents a unique inquiry into modern subjectivity that will be of great interest to scholars of psychoanalysis, philosophy, film, literature and contemporary culture.

• children
• culture
• identity
• medicine
• philosophy
• social philosophy
• Freud
• aporia
• Jean Baudrillard
• Lacan
• Bernard Stiegler

“Voela blends together elements of popular culture, psychoanalysis and critical social theory in a manner that is both innovative and compelling to offer an insightful and thoroughly original contribution to the growing field of Psychosocial Studies. The analysis she offers, which distills crucial facets of Lacanian theory (the Name-of-the-Father, etc.) and applies them to salient trends within contemporary neo-liberal culture, is at once fresh and invigorating. Her book is a wonderful example of the type of urgent critical and reflective work that Psychosocial Studies can offer.” (Derek Hook, Duquense University, USA)

• Watford, United Kingdom

  Angie Voela

Angie Voela is a senior lecturer in Psychosocial Studies at the University of East London, UK. She has published in a number of journals and co-edited We Need to Talk About Family: Essays on Neoliberalism, the Family and Popular Culture.

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