Distillations: Theory, Ethics, Affect

Title Page......Page 4
Copyright Page......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgments......Page 7
Author’s note......Page 10
Introduction......Page 12
Chapter 1: The posthumanist universal: Between precarity and rebellion......Page 24
The crisis of multiculturalism......Page 25
The ethical tensions of the face......Page 28
The revival of universalism......Page 30
The singular and the universal......Page 34
The victim versus the immortal......Page 38
Sara Ahmed’s brick wall......Page 43
But what is the universal?......Page 46
Historically specific universalism......Page 49
The radicalness of the universal......Page 52
Breaking with tradition, culture, and custom......Page 56
Chapter 2: The bad habits of critical theory: On the rigid rituals of thought......Page 62
Slaying the humanist subject......Page 65
Is the subject precarious or arrogant?......Page 69
Why do we want to kill the subject?......Page 71
The rewards of antinormativity......Page 74
Cleansing the plate......Page 77
The failings of relationality......Page 80
The problems of antinormativity......Page 83
Posthumanist ethical aporias......Page 86
The historicity of normative ethics......Page 90
Badiou’s ethics of the event......Page 93
Chapter 3: Why some things matter more than others: A Lacanian explanation......Page 100
The hermeneutics of suspicion......Page 102
When satisfaction dissatisfies......Page 107
When dissatisfaction satisfies......Page 110
Lacan’s ethics of desire......Page 114
Two types of desire......Page 116
The echo of the thing......Page 119
Outshining the lures of capitalism......Page 122
The Thing’s code of ethics......Page 126
Why is there so much anxiety?......Page 129
Desire as a remedy to anxiety......Page 133
Chapter 4: Rupture or resignation? Lacanian political theory versus affect theory......Page 138
The event, the act......Page 139
The sublimity of failure......Page 141
The phallus as lack......Page 146
Different levels of negation......Page 149
Who can afford rupture?......Page 153
Negotiating with power......Page 155
What is agency?......Page 160
Refusing to answer to comrade......Page 165
What’s good about feeling bad?......Page 166
The inadequacies of grieving......Page 168
Chapter 5: Socrates’s mistake: Lacanians on love, Lacan on Agálmata......Page 172
Romance versus love......Page 173
Badiou’s amorous event......Page 174
Love’s traumatic dimensions......Page 178
Why love is not a good investment......Page 184
Socrates’s Agálmata......Page 187
Why is Socrates mistaken?......Page 190
The psychoanalytic partial object......Page 195
The event of love: Where two dignities meet......Page 197
Loving the lack in the other......Page 200
The overvaluation of love......Page 204
Chapter 6: Is suffering an event? Badiou between Nietzsche and Freud......Page 208
Nietzschean forgetting......Page 211
Releasing strangulated affects......Page 213
The legitimacy of resentment......Page 214
Clearing the slate......Page 217
Remembering as a way to forget......Page 220
Keeping suffering at a distance......Page 223
Living next to trauma......Page 224
Are we all traumatized?......Page 227
Is suffering an event?......Page 232
Can an event be planned?......Page 236
Bibliography......Page 240
Index......Page 246