(Dørerne lukkes præcist)

Bedømmelsesudvalg:

• Lektor Søren Christensen (formand), Aarhus Universitet, Institut for Uddannelse og Pædagogik (DPU)
• Lektor Lilian Munk Rösing, Institut for Kunst og kulturvidenskab, Københavns Universitet
• Professor Renata Salecl, Institute of Criminology, University of Ljubljana

Hovedvejleder

• Lektor Kirsten Hyldgaard, Aarhus Universitet, Institut for Uddannelse og Pædagogik (DPU)

Medvejleder

• Professor Dolar Mladen, Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana

Forsvaret ledes af lektor Jette Kofoed, Aarhus Universitet Institut for Uddannelse og Pædagogik (DPU)

Afhandlingen ligger til gennemsyn hos Institut for Uddannelse og Pædagogik (DPU), Tuborgvej 164,  bygning D, lokale 329, sekretariatet.

Institut for Uddannelse og Pædagogik (DPU) er vært ved en efterfølgende reception.

Abstract:
What can Jacques Lacan tell us about relations of power and figures of authority? – That is the guiding question of What Captivates the Subject? The dissertation answers this question by providing a close study of Lacanian texts and seminars from 1953 to 1973, seeking to present not only the strong conceptual coherency of Lacan’s theory, but also its fundamental underpinnings in the work of Sigmund Freud.

The dissertation thus attempts to pave the way for a renewed engagement between Lacanian theory and social theory in general. This engagement has already proven exceptionally fruitful in recent years, where research emerging from Slovenia has been developing a new Lacanian approach to the analysis of social products and political affairs. The dissertation follows in the wake of this new movement, but takes its own line of reasoning in so far as it undertakes to account for two concepts central to the technical psychoanalytical vocabulary: identification and theobject.

The identification and the relation to a libidinal object were acknowledged by Freud as the most fundamental mechanisms in the social life of any human being, just as he regarded them as fundamental to the establishment and maintenance of power structures, not least within the psychoanalytic clinic itself. Yet his accounts of the concepts remain blurry and tentative throughout his career, and it took a Lacan to finally build a rigorous theoretical framework around these concepts.

Throughout the dissertation, close readings of Lacan are followed by short interventions into questions of social or political theory, so that the potential of Lacan’s theory for clarifying issues or bringing to light novel perspectives is demonstrated. For instance, not only can Lacan tell us about the inherent paradoxes of authority and power in a classroom, he can also tell us why the most powerful figure of authority may be the one who shows clear signs of weakness, or why the most unshakeable way of identifying with a framework of social values is by identifying while maintaining a distance to it.