This was good. Weirdly a lot of more contemporary psychoanalytic critical theory has helped me in kicking off a more productive gender journey. I’m still not sure how to feel about Freud as a whole, but I think psychoanalysis at least gets to some profound questions and wrestles hard with them, allowing you to get deeper than most other writers do.
What do you like in terms of contemporary psychoanalytic critical theory? I figure I'll read some Lacan at some point, but I'm not sure what else there is out there
I'll admit I'm not overly familiar with psychoanalysis via engagement with primary sources, but so much contemporary theory is working in its shadow that I can't really escape it. Off the top of my head, Adrian Johnston's 'Zizek's Ontology: A Transcendental Materialist Theory of Subjectivity' was huge for me. It's incredibly dense and academic, and Zizek himself has had a somewhat mixed response to transgenderism, but Johnston basically gets underneath all his shenanigans to outline a theory of subjectivity where the underlying substance that gives rise to subjects is itself antagonized, giving rise to subjects that are not reducible to their biology. It also pushes against the idea that there is some 'Nature' underneath us that is whole; the reality underlying our reality is fractured from the beginning, which freed me up in terms of being more free about gender. While not just about psychoanalysis (it follows Zizek in rereading German idealism via Freud/Lacan) there's obviously a lot of psychoanalytic ideas in play.
I also liked the late Mari Ruti's 'The Call of Character', which was much more readable in terms of making psychoanalysis relevant to everyday concerns about being different and setting out on different paths (I also have her book 'The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory's Defiant Subjects' on my shelf but have yet to get to it). Speaking of books I haven't yet read, I remember also enjoying this interview with Patricia Gherovici on her book 'Transgender Psychoanalysis' some years ago. (https://newbooksnetwork.com/patricia-gherovici-transgender-psychoanalysis-a-lacanian-perspective-on-sexual-difference-routledge-2017-2)
I feel like there's more out there that I'm just not thinking of now, but those are some maybe interesting starting points.
The only psycho analysis I know is Lacan, who I found so confusing I just listen to podcasts from philosophers and intellectuals about him and his ideology. I did find a Black psychoanslyst - via podcast listening - who wrote one book and cowrote another about race and racism + psychoanalysis. I haven't read them yet but they're in my possessiom!
I've never given my gender a lot of thought except that I think it's tied to something physical and emotional. When I first started thinking about it, being nonbinary or trans wasnt as visible and there wasn't a huge incentive to support people. I had one friend who initially rejected my gender identity and it made me not want to continue knowing them. I mostly kept it to myself or shared with the trans or queer people I knew.
But now, progressives have forced people to accept gender variance and this same friend is all about validating me and is really open about gender and gender identity.
I would have never thought to think about or use Freud to understand myself! I also don't know anyone who casually reads psychoanalysis.
Also, I'm pretty sure I know that guy who is really interested in IQ! And he has certainly argued that Black people have lower IQs than whites and Asians.
LOL, there are a few! I actually went looking through the masthead of one of the publications (Yascha Mounk's Persuasion) to find a race/IQ guy, because I wanted to make a joke, and sure enough I found him! The race/IQ people are embarrassing, that shit has all been debunked, but they just want it to be true, so they don't need to think about systemic racism anymore.
This is really interesting! I do like to play with the Freudian explanations, the way that there is inevitable continuity between masculinity and transfemininity and I find it productive, but at the bottom of things I probably do agree that it's all somehow biologically determined, and not in the "microplastics making all our boys sissies" way that rationalists like to go on about either. If that were the case I wouldn't expect Ellis in the 20s writing about the Victorian era to say that Eonism was the second most common variety of sexual difference after homosexuality.
On your rec I started reading this today! Love it. I did know Ellis was a sex researcher but until now I mostly knew him for doing the second-best Emile Zola translations, after Leonard Tancock.
This was good. Weirdly a lot of more contemporary psychoanalytic critical theory has helped me in kicking off a more productive gender journey. I’m still not sure how to feel about Freud as a whole, but I think psychoanalysis at least gets to some profound questions and wrestles hard with them, allowing you to get deeper than most other writers do.
What do you like in terms of contemporary psychoanalytic critical theory? I figure I'll read some Lacan at some point, but I'm not sure what else there is out there
I'll admit I'm not overly familiar with psychoanalysis via engagement with primary sources, but so much contemporary theory is working in its shadow that I can't really escape it. Off the top of my head, Adrian Johnston's 'Zizek's Ontology: A Transcendental Materialist Theory of Subjectivity' was huge for me. It's incredibly dense and academic, and Zizek himself has had a somewhat mixed response to transgenderism, but Johnston basically gets underneath all his shenanigans to outline a theory of subjectivity where the underlying substance that gives rise to subjects is itself antagonized, giving rise to subjects that are not reducible to their biology. It also pushes against the idea that there is some 'Nature' underneath us that is whole; the reality underlying our reality is fractured from the beginning, which freed me up in terms of being more free about gender. While not just about psychoanalysis (it follows Zizek in rereading German idealism via Freud/Lacan) there's obviously a lot of psychoanalytic ideas in play.
I also liked the late Mari Ruti's 'The Call of Character', which was much more readable in terms of making psychoanalysis relevant to everyday concerns about being different and setting out on different paths (I also have her book 'The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory's Defiant Subjects' on my shelf but have yet to get to it). Speaking of books I haven't yet read, I remember also enjoying this interview with Patricia Gherovici on her book 'Transgender Psychoanalysis' some years ago. (https://newbooksnetwork.com/patricia-gherovici-transgender-psychoanalysis-a-lacanian-perspective-on-sexual-difference-routledge-2017-2)
I feel like there's more out there that I'm just not thinking of now, but those are some maybe interesting starting points.
The only psycho analysis I know is Lacan, who I found so confusing I just listen to podcasts from philosophers and intellectuals about him and his ideology. I did find a Black psychoanslyst - via podcast listening - who wrote one book and cowrote another about race and racism + psychoanalysis. I haven't read them yet but they're in my possessiom!
I've never given my gender a lot of thought except that I think it's tied to something physical and emotional. When I first started thinking about it, being nonbinary or trans wasnt as visible and there wasn't a huge incentive to support people. I had one friend who initially rejected my gender identity and it made me not want to continue knowing them. I mostly kept it to myself or shared with the trans or queer people I knew.
But now, progressives have forced people to accept gender variance and this same friend is all about validating me and is really open about gender and gender identity.
I would have never thought to think about or use Freud to understand myself! I also don't know anyone who casually reads psychoanalysis.
Also, I'm pretty sure I know that guy who is really interested in IQ! And he has certainly argued that Black people have lower IQs than whites and Asians.
LOL, there are a few! I actually went looking through the masthead of one of the publications (Yascha Mounk's Persuasion) to find a race/IQ guy, because I wanted to make a joke, and sure enough I found him! The race/IQ people are embarrassing, that shit has all been debunked, but they just want it to be true, so they don't need to think about systemic racism anymore.
This is really interesting! I do like to play with the Freudian explanations, the way that there is inevitable continuity between masculinity and transfemininity and I find it productive, but at the bottom of things I probably do agree that it's all somehow biologically determined, and not in the "microplastics making all our boys sissies" way that rationalists like to go on about either. If that were the case I wouldn't expect Ellis in the 20s writing about the Victorian era to say that Eonism was the second most common variety of sexual difference after homosexuality.
On your rec I started reading this today! Love it. I did know Ellis was a sex researcher but until now I mostly knew him for doing the second-best Emile Zola translations, after Leonard Tancock.
I never knew he did that! I’m glad you’re enjoying it!