Sex, ontology, subjectivity: In conversation with Alenka Zupančič

Abstract

In this wide-ranging conversation, Alenka Zupančič engages with a number of important themes that animate her current work. Randall Terada begins by asking her first to address the striking connections in her work between sexuality, ontology, and the unconscious. Zupančič then moves on to the Lacanian theme of subjective destitution and her differences with Alain Badiou's theory of the subject. She highlights her most recent work on Kant and offers a subtle critique of Emmanuel Levinas and Jean Laplanche. Zupančič lightens up the discussion somewhat by detailing an Ernst Lubitsch joke to illustrate the significance of the with-without for her Lacanian inspired ontology and in doing so points out why the sexes are not two in any meaningful way. Finally, the discussion closes with a candid and accessible commentary on being, multiplicity, and the One and its importance for a politics that is emphatic in its emphasis that it not take "nothing" or "non-being" for granted.

Materialni svet otroštva

“…Telesno in duševno, naravno in kulturno se v preseku šele ustvarita. Ime za to, kar v preseku nastane, je gon (Zupančič 2005). Gon je psihično zastopstvo somatskega dražljaja, je utelešenje meje med telesnim in duševnim (Freud 1995).…”

“Large fat sighings” of a “large bulky figure”: Identity-building and formation of new order in Persuasion

“…In the question of the function of the super-narrator, when it simply mocks the meta-narrator and "justifies its cruelty," Sigler believes such a setting makes the narrator a butt of the joke, and a community is created through the dynamic operation of the joke, under the regulation of the superego (Sigler, 2019: 45-49) [18] . This is a process, as described by the Lacanian philosopher, where "the ego ideal itself turns out to be the partial object" (Zupančič, 2008: 32) [19] .…”

Subjective destitution, love, and rebellion in pandemic times: Theorizing with Hot Skull

“…Nothing is promised in advance, and there is no pre-selecting the "right time" that this event will happen. Acknowledging the aftereffects of a love encounter as an encounter with the Real allows us to see it operating within the broader domain of human subjectivity, where we can retroactively identify its conditions of emergence in a before-and-after the seismic event type of situation (see Zupančičand Terada, 2015).…”