At certain moments in his political essays, Kant conceives of socio-historical emancipation as a process of working ourselves out of pathological legacies, suggesting that emancipation would involve a process of working through our affective attachments to entrenched, regressive social arrangements. Jackson shows how Freud’s analyses of melancholia, mania and the work of mourning can contribute to an understanding of key dimensions of such pathological social fixations, as well as the possibility of working through the past. This book argues that bringing Freud’s provocative analyses of loss to bear on particular philosophical treatments of history leads to a more coherent, psychoanalytically informed understanding of history. Although Freud does not himself integrate these themes into a theory of socio-political emancipation, his thinking nonetheless can be read as contributing to such a theory. To develop this idea the book draws on thinkers such as Karl Marx, Theodor Adorno, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Axel Honneth, and Judith Butler. The book engages students and scholars of contemporary continental philosophy by arguing for connections between psychoanalysis, philosophy, and critical theory.

This book presents a reading of Nietzsche as a thinker of the suffered social histories of subjectivity.  It suggests that Nietzsche’s concept of genealogy needs the concept of convalescence to be coherent. Genealogy is a form of reflection that traces the suffered scenes of which that reflection is symptomatic, whereas convalescence is the ordeal of reflection’s coming to bear its limits within scenes of embodied suffering.  This theme is developed by appeals to Freud’s notion of mourning and the object relations theories of Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott, which insist on the primacy of suffered relationality in the genesis of subjectivity.  Moreover, Adorno’s notion of negative dialectics and its emphasis on the primacy of the object are suggested as an alternative context within which to read Nietzsche’s writing, in contrast with dominant modes of criticism.  The discussion will appeal to anyone interested in Nietzsche, critical theory and the relationship between psychoanalysis and philosophy.

This book presents a reading of Nietzsche as a thinker of the suffered social histories of subjectivity.  It suggests that Nietzsche’s concept of genealogy needs the concept of convalescence to be coherent. Genealogy is a form of reflection that traces the suffered scenes of which that reflection is symptomatic, whereas convalescence is the ordeal of reflection’s coming to bear its limits within scenes of embodied suffering.  This theme is developed by appeals to Freud’s notion of mourning and the object relations theories of Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott, which insist on the primacy of suffered relationality in the genesis of subjectivity.  Moreover, Adorno’s notion of negative dialectics and its emphasis on the primacy of the object are suggested as an alternative context within which to read Nietzsche’s writing, in contrast with dominant modes of criticism.  The discussion will appeal to anyone interested in Nietzsche, critical theory and the relationship between psychoanalysis and philosophy.

This book presents a reading of Nietzsche as a thinker of the suffered social histories of subjectivity.  It suggests that Nietzsche’s concept of genealogy needs the concept of convalescence to be coherent. Genealogy is a form of reflection that traces the suffered scenes of which that reflection is symptomatic, whereas convalescence is the ordeal of reflection’s coming to bear its limits within scenes of embodied suffering.  This theme is developed by appeals to Freud’s notion of mourning and the object relations theories of Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott, which insist on the primacy of suffered relationality in the genesis of subjectivity.  Moreover, Adorno’s notion of negative dialectics and its emphasis on the primacy of the object are suggested as an alternative context within which to read Nietzsche’s writing, in contrast with dominant modes of criticism.  The discussion will appeal to anyone interested in Nietzsche, critical theory and the relationship between psychoanalysis and philosophy.

At certain moments in his political essays, Kant conceives of socio-historical emancipation as a process of working ourselves out of pathological legacies, suggesting that emancipation would involve a process of working through our affective attachments to entrenched, regressive social arrangements. Jackson shows how Freud’s analyses of melancholia, mania and the work of mourning can contribute to an understanding of key dimensions of such pathological social fixations, as well as the possibility of working through the past. This book argues that bringing Freud’s provocative analyses of loss to bear on particular philosophical treatments of history leads to a more coherent, psychoanalytically informed understanding of history. Although Freud does not himself integrate these themes into a theory of socio-political emancipation, his thinking nonetheless can be read as contributing to such a theory. To develop this idea the book draws on thinkers such as Karl Marx, Theodor Adorno, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Axel Honneth, and Judith Butler. The book engages students and scholars of contemporary continental philosophy by arguing for connections between psychoanalysis, philosophy, and critical theory.

This book presents a reading of Nietzsche as a thinker of the suffered social histories of subjectivity.  It suggests that Nietzsche’s concept of genealogy needs the concept of convalescence to be coherent. Genealogy is a form of reflection that traces the suffered scenes of which that reflection is symptomatic, whereas convalescence is the ordeal of reflection’s coming to bear its limits within scenes of embodied suffering.  This theme is developed by appeals to Freud’s notion of mourning and the object relations theories of Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott, which insist on the primacy of suffered relationality in the genesis of subjectivity.  Moreover, Adorno’s notion of negative dialectics and its emphasis on the primacy of the object are suggested as an alternative context within which to read Nietzsche’s writing, in contrast with dominant modes of criticism.  The discussion will appeal to anyone interested in Nietzsche, critical theory and the relationship between psychoanalysis and philosophy.

This book presents a reading of Nietzsche as a thinker of the suffered social histories of subjectivity.  It suggests that Nietzsche’s concept of genealogy needs the concept of convalescence to be coherent. Genealogy is a form of reflection that traces the suffered scenes of which that reflection is symptomatic, whereas convalescence is the ordeal of reflection’s coming to bear its limits within scenes of embodied suffering.  This theme is developed by appeals to Freud’s notion of mourning and the object relations theories of Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott, which insist on the primacy of suffered relationality in the genesis of subjectivity.  Moreover, Adorno’s notion of negative dialectics and its emphasis on the primacy of the object are suggested as an alternative context within which to read Nietzsche’s writing, in contrast with dominant modes of criticism.  The discussion will appeal to anyone interested in Nietzsche, critical theory and the relationship between psychoanalysis and philosophy.

This book presents a reading of Nietzsche as a thinker of the suffered social histories of subjectivity.  It suggests that Nietzsche’s concept of genealogy needs the concept of convalescence to be coherent. Genealogy is a form of reflection that traces the suffered scenes of which that reflection is symptomatic, whereas convalescence is the ordeal of reflection’s coming to bear its limits within scenes of embodied suffering.  This theme is developed by appeals to Freud’s notion of mourning and the object relations theories of Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott, which insist on the primacy of suffered relationality in the genesis of subjectivity.  Moreover, Adorno’s notion of negative dialectics and its emphasis on the primacy of the object are suggested as an alternative context within which to read Nietzsche’s writing, in contrast with dominant modes of criticism.  The discussion will appeal to anyone interested in Nietzsche, critical theory and the relationship between psychoanalysis and philosophy.