Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France

Description

This classic work by one of the most important philosophers and critics of our time charts the genesis and trajectory of the desiring subject from Hegel's formulation in Phenomenology of Spirit to its appropriation by Kojève, Hyppolite, Sartre, Lacan, Deleuze, and Foucault. Judith Butler plots the French reception of Hegel and the successive challenges waged against his metaphysics and view of the subject, all while revealing ambiguities within his position. The result is a sophisticated reconsideration of the post-Hegelian tradition that has predominated in modern French thought, and her study remains a provocative and timely intervention in contemporary debates over the unconscious, the powers of subjection, and the subject. Contents......Page 6 Foreword by Philippe Sabot......Page 8 Preface to the Paperback Edition......Page 14 Preface......Page 26 Abbreviations......Page 30 Introduction......Page 34 1. Desire, Rhetoric, and Recognition in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit......Page 50 The Ontology of Desire......Page 57 Bodily Paradoxes: Lordship and Bondage......Page 76 2. Historical Desires: The French Reception of Hegel......Page 94 Kojeve: Desire and Historical Agency......Page 96 Hyppolite: Desire, Transience, and the Absolute......Page 112 From Hegel to Sartre......Page 125 Image, Emotion, and Desire......Page 134 The Strategies of Pre-reflective Choice: Existential Desire in Being and Nothingness......Page 154 Trouble and Longing: The Circle of Sexual Desire in Being and Nothingness......Page 171 Desire and Recognition in Saint Genet and The Family Idiot......Page 189 4. The Life and Death Struggles of Desire: Hegel and the Contemporary French Theory......Page 208 A Questionable Patrilineage: (Post-)Hegelian Themes in Derrida and Foucault......Page 210 Lacan: The Opacity of Desire......Page 219 Deleuze: From Slave Morality to Productive Desire......Page 238 Foucault: Dialectics Unmoored......Page 250 Final Reflections on the "Overcoming" of Hegel......Page 263 Notes......Page 272 Bibliography......Page 286 Index......Page 298