James Penney is Professor of Cultural Studies and French and Francophone Studies at Trent University, Canada. He is the author of After Queer Theory: The Limits of Sexual Politics (2014), The Structures of Love: Art and Politics Beyond the Transference (2012), and The World of Perversion: Psychoanalysis and the Impossible Absolute of Desire (2006).

A much needed, illuminating and beautifully-written book. Philosophical and Lacanian concepts that typically remain mired in obscurity spring to life in Penney’s text. A more masterly treatment of the relationship between the writings of Lacan and Genet – indeed, between psychoanalysis and poetry – will not be forthcoming.

• Introduction: Acts of Poetry, Acts of Interpretation1. Logic and Fantasy: Freud on Moses 2. Towards Feminine Being: Our Lady of the Flowers3. The Phallus Unveiled: The Balcony4. Residue of Modernity, Wound of Being: Genet on Art5. Postcoloniality Meets Indeterminate Negation: The Screens6. The Image of Absence: Prisoner of LoveBibliography Index

James Penney is Professor of Cultural Studies and French and Francophone Studies at Trent University, Canada. He is the author of After Queer Theory: The Limits of Sexual Politics (2014), The Structures of Love: Art and Politics Beyond the Transference (2012), and The World of Perversion: Psychoanalysis and the Impossible Absolute of Desire (2006).

A much needed, illuminating and beautifully-written book. Philosophical and Lacanian concepts that typically remain mired in obscurity spring to life in Penney’s text. A more masterly treatment of the relationship between the writings of Lacan and Genet – indeed, between psychoanalysis and poetry – will not be forthcoming.

• Introduction: Acts of Poetry, Acts of Interpretation1. Logic and Fantasy: Freud on Moses 2. Towards Feminine Being: Our Lady of the Flowers3. The Phallus Unveiled: The Balcony4. Residue of Modernity, Wound of Being: Genet on Art5. Postcoloniality Meets Indeterminate Negation: The Screens6. The Image of Absence: Prisoner of LoveBibliography Index

James Penney is Professor of Cultural Studies and French and Francophone Studies at Trent University, Canada. He is the author of After Queer Theory: The Limits of Sexual Politics (2014), The Structures of Love: Art and Politics Beyond the Transference (2012), and The World of Perversion: Psychoanalysis and the Impossible Absolute of Desire (2006).

A much needed, illuminating and beautifully-written book. Philosophical and Lacanian concepts that typically remain mired in obscurity spring to life in Penney’s text. A more masterly treatment of the relationship between the writings of Lacan and Genet – indeed, between psychoanalysis and poetry – will not be forthcoming.

• Introduction: Acts of Poetry, Acts of Interpretation1. Logic and Fantasy: Freud on Moses 2. Towards Feminine Being: Our Lady of the Flowers3. The Phallus Unveiled: The Balcony4. Residue of Modernity, Wound of Being: Genet on Art5. Postcoloniality Meets Indeterminate Negation: The Screens6. The Image of Absence: Prisoner of LoveBibliography Index