Lacanian Antiphilosophy and the Problem of Anxiety

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction Have No Fear …

   • Brian Robertson

   Pages 1-13

3. The uncanny

   • Brian Robertson

   Pages 15-29

4. Erotic Embarras and the Fetish Object

   • Brian Robertson

   Pages 31-43

5. Anxiety in Sadism and Masochism

   • Brian Robertson

   Pages 45-69

6. The Demonic Secret

   • Brian Robertson

   Pages 71-102

7. Anxiety and Sexual Difference (I): Kierkegaard’s Embarrassing Question

   • Brian Robertson

   Pages 103-135

8. Anxiety and Sexual Difference (II): Genital Love and Countertransference

   • Brian Robertson

   Pages 137-159

9. Anxiety in Animals and Speaking Animals

   • Brian Robertson

   Pages 161-185

10. Adding Two ‘New’ Objects to the List: The Gaze and the Voice

    • Brian Robertson

    Pages 187-210

11. Concluding Remarks ‘Understumbling’ Anxiety

    • Brian Robertson

    Pages 211-214

12. Back Matter

    Pages 215-249

    PDF

This book brings Jacques Lacan's work on the problem of anxiety into a jarring and fruitful confrontation with phenomenology, existentialism, and the 'jargon' of authenticity. Brian Robertson masterfully upends a host of received philosophical truths - most notably, and crucially, the idea that anxiety 'lacks an object.'

• Anxiety
• Desire
• Sexuality
• Jacques Lacan
• Existentialism
• Phenomenology
• Affect
• Sadism
• Masochism
• Jouissance
• The Gaze
• Drives
• The Uncanny
• Sexual Difference
• Homosexuality
• Philosophical Anthropology
• Subjectivity
• Kierkegaard
• Sartre
• Heidegger
• anthropology
• existentialism
• Jean-Paul Sartre
• Martin Heidegger
• phenomenology
• philosophy
• Sören Kierkegaard

'This exploration of anxiety provides not only a path-breaking rethinking of the concept of anxiety but also a wholly new way of thinking about Jacques Lacan. Through Robertson's careful analysis, we discover a Lacan who participates in the existentialist project by reformulating its key concepts rather than dismissing them. This book is a genuine breakthrough.' - Todd McGowan, University of Vermont, USA

'Robertson's focus here is Lacan's crucially important 1962-63 seminar on anxiety. Robertson locates Lacan's problematic in relation to phenomenological and existential conceptions of anxiety in Heidegger, Sartre, and Kierkegaard, and provides detailed background on many of the seminar's more obscure references. The result is a useful illumination of an indispensable Lacanian text.' - Richard Boothby, Loyola University Maryland, USA

Brian Robertson is an independent scholar residing in Washington, USA.

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