James Penney
Researcher Theory
26.01.11 – 10.04.11
Bodies of Enjoyment, Bodies of Truth: Between Lacan and Badiou
For a long time, philosopher Alain Badiou has cited Jacques Lacan as one of his ‘masters’. Yet it remains the case that in at least two senses the two figures make for strange bedfellows. Most significantly, perhaps, Badiou’s properly mathematical ontology – his contention, more simply, that the question of being is to be referred to the history of humanity’s attempts to account for infinite multiplicity – contrasts sharply with the Lacanian “logic of the signifier”, that is to say, with the insistence of psychoanalysis that both its practice and theory rest on an understanding of the linguistic structure of the unconscious. There is also a quite dramatic disciplinary antagonism. Lacan’s consistent invective against philosophy (“je m’insurge contre la philosophie!”) sits awkwardly alongside the work of one who has written not one, but two, ‘manifestos’ for that discipline. Indeed, one has trouble imagining a conversation between Badiou and Lacan that would not feature some fundamental misunderstanding. Badiou declares in Logiques des mondes that Lacan’s most fundamental premise, namely that the human animal is defined by its problematic being in language, does not suffice to “found [fonder]” that same animal. And conversely, one can imagine Lacan reproaching the philosopher’s ambition of mathematical (set-theoretical or “logical”) formalisation for foreclosing on the importance of the subjection of the human subject to the Other of language.
At the Jan van Eyck Academie I will be interested in further exploring the awkward, but also tremendously productive, relation between Lacan and Badiou through the lens of the body. In the midst of his development of his idea of incorporation in Logique des mondes, Badiou inserts his most sustained commentary on Lacan in that book. I aim to explore Badiou’s reproach against Lacan that the psychoanalyst’s invective against philosophy is motivated by his sustained critique of what he considered to be a quintessentially philosophical concept – that of the absolute. I will develop the idea that Badiou’s sense of Lacan’s investment in finitude strangely sidesteps the psychoanalyst’s development of the motif of infinity in relation to jouissance, and more specifically, to feminine jouissance. Finally, I will address Badiou’s distinction between his own idea of a “transhuman body” and what he calls Lacan’s notion of a “symptomatic body”, arguing that Lacan’s consideration of embodied experience potentially goes beyond the merely symptomatic, and charts suggestive territory for thought beyond the limits of psychoanalysis as Badiou appears to construe them.
Edmonton, CA
PhD Literature. Duke University, Durham, US.
MA Comparative Literature and Film Studies. University of Alberta, Alberta, CA.
BA (Hon) Comparative Literature and Film Studies. University of Alberta, Alberta, CA.
SSHRC Postdoctoral fellow. Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism, Department of French, University of Western Ontario, London, CA.
School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell University, Ithaca, US.
Mellow fellow. Society for the Humanities, Department of Romance Languages, Cornell University, Ithaca, US.
Visiting student. Université de Paris VII Diderot, Paris, FR.
School of Criticism and Theory, Dartmouth College, Hanover, US.
Associate professor of Cultural Studies. Centre for Theory, Culture and Politics and Cultural Studies PhD program, Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Lecturer. MA Program in Critical and Cultural Studies, Department of French and Francophone Studies, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, GB.
Affiliations with the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society; Film Studies Association of Canada; American Comparative Literature Association; Modern Language Association of America and the Canadian Comparative Literature Association.
Cultural Studies department executive committee.
External tenure committee. Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
SSHRC Scholarship committee. Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Cultural Studies tenure committee. Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Theory, Culture, Politics Centre research committee.
Cultural Studies tenure committee.
Ontario Graduate Studies scholarship application evaluator.
PhD first-year examination committee. Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Registrar’s office liaison. Cultural Studies Department, Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Space Utilization Senate Committee. Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Timetabling coordinator. Cultural Studies Program, Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Theory, Culture and Politics director search committee. Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Thesis supervisor of Susanna Ashley. Theory, Culture and Politics MA program, Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Executive committee. Cultural Studies Program, Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Honours thesis advisor for Nathan Boyes. Cultural Studies Program, Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Peer-reviewed essay for Mosaic: Journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature.
Peer-reviewed essay for Rhizomes.
Thesis supervisor for Suzanne Leblanc. Theory, Culture and Politics MA Program, Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Thesis committee member. Theory, Culture and Politics MA Program, Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Chair of the Cultural Studies website development committee. Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Executive committee. Cultural Studies Program, Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Thesis supervisor for Nathan Rambukkana. Theory, Culture and Politics MA Program, Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Internal examiner for PhD program. Critical Theory and Cultural Studies Program, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, GB.
Peer-reviewed essays for Angelaki: Journal of the theoretical humanities.
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada standard research grant.
Theory, Culture and Politics research grant. Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Theory, Culture and Politics research grant. Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Centre for Theory, Culture and Politics research grant.
Centre for Theory, Culture and Politics research grant.
International travel grant. Graduate Studies, Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Self-funded research grant. Graduate Studies, Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
SSHRC internal research grant for The structures of love. Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada postdoctoral fellowship.
Society for the Humanities fellowship. School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell University, Ithaca, US.
Mellon postdoctoral fellowship. Society for the Humanities, Cornell University, Ithaca, US.
Dissertation year fellowship. Graduate School, Duke University, Durham, US.
John Hope Franklin distinguished teaching fellowhip. Duke University, Durham, US.
Pre-dissertation travel grant for research in Paris, FR. Center for International Studies, Duke University, Durham, US.
Admission fellowhip. School of Criticism and Theory, Dartmouth College, Hanover, US.
James B. Duke fellowship. Graduate Program in Literature, Duke University, Durham, US.
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada doctoral fellowship.
Louise McKinney scholarship. University of Alberta, Alberta, CA.
Merit award (salary increment). Trent University, Peterborough, CA.
Kenan Ethics program dissertation award. Duke University, Durham, US.
Postcolonial contradictions. In: New directions in the humanities conference. Panel session. Tunis, TN: University of 7th November at Carthage.
Citizen voyeur: Spectatorship and perversion. In: Film studies association of Canada. Panel session. London, CA: The University of Western Ontario.
Sexual difference, encore. In: MLA convention. Special session. New Orleans, US.
Sexuation and homosexuality. Panel session. New Brunswick, US: Rutgers University.
Sin and sense in seventeenth-century France. In: MLA convention. Panel session. San Francisco, US.
The world of perversion: Psychoanalysis and the impossible absolute of desire. Albany, US: SUNY Press.
Genet among the Palestinians: Sex, betrayal and the incomparable real. In: Comparatively queer. New York, US: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jacques Lacan. In: The Johns Hopkins guide to literary theory and criticism, 2nd edition. Baltimore, US: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Confessions of a medieval sodomite. In: Molly Rothenberg (Ed.). Perversion and the social relation. SIC, pp. 126-158. Baltimore, US: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Uncanny strangers. Does the subaltern speak through Julia Kristeva? In: Christopher Lane (Ed.). The psychoanalysis of race, pp. 120-138. New York, US: Columbia University Press.
You do not look at me from where I see you. Postcolonial guilt in Caché. In: New formations, 70.
The failure of spectatorship. In: Communication theory (issue: Succeeding failure: Openings in communication and media studies), 17(1), pp. 43-60.
Passing into the universal: Fanon, Sartre and the colonial dialectic. In: Paragraph, 27(3), pp. 49-67.
(Queer) theory and the global alternative. In: Diacritics, 32(2), pp. 1-18.
The schizoanalytic protest: Homosexual desire revisited. In: Angelaki (issue: Hotel psychoanalysis), 9(1), pp. 67-83.
Beyond Atè: Lacan, ethics, and the real. In: Journal for the psychoanalysis of culture and society, 7(1), pp. 24-38.
The sameness of sexual difference and the difference of same-sex desire. In: Umbr(a), pp. 43-63.
Renata Salecl (Ed). Sexuation. Book review. In: Journal for the psychoanalysis of culture and society, 6(1), pp. 151-154.
Tim Dean. Beyond sexuality. Book review. In: Radical philosophy, 106, pp. 45-46.
The tragic subject: Pascal and the mystery of the transmission of sin. In: Paragraph, 24(1), pp. 17-31.
Jean-Marc Moura. L’Europe littéraire et l’ailleurs, and Jean Bessière and Jean-Marc Moura (Eds.). Littératures postcoloniales et représentations de l’ailleurs. Afrique, Caraïbe, Canada. Book review. In: New comparison, 29, pp. 179-180.
Slavoj Žižek. The ticklish subject: The absent centre of political ontology. Book review. In: Journal for the psychoanalysis of culture and society, 5(1), pp. 166-169.
D.A. Miller. Bringing out Roland Barthes. Book review. In: Canadian review of comparative literature, 20(3-4), pp. 536-539.
Jean-Claude Milner. Considerations of a work. In: Journal for Lacanian Studies, 4(1), pp. 141-158.
After queer theory. In: American Comparative Literature Association annual conference. New Orleans, US.
Haneke, the gaze, and postcolonial guilt. In: Film studies association of Canada meeting. Ottawa, CA: Carleton University.
Let’s get serious! On the trail of queer Marxism. In: The artfulness of play graduate student conference. Keynote speaker. London, CA: The University of Western Ontario.
The space of the body: On Lucian Freud. In: Canadian comparative literature association meeting. Ottawa, CA: Carleton University.
Bodily love: Lucian Freud’s shameful nudes. In: The limits of love conference. Ithaca, US: Cornell University.
Psychoanalysis and citizenship. In: Modern language association convention. San Francisco, US.
Blind space: Diderot and the gaze. In: Association for the psychoanalysis of culture and society. New Brunswick, US: Rutgers University.
You do not look at me from where I see you. Postcolonial guilt in Caché. London, CA: The University of Western Ontario.
The refusal of love. Lacan reads The symposium. In: Cultural Studies PhD program lecture series. Peterborough, CA: Trent University.
Genet’s fantasmatics of the postcolonial city. In: New directions in the humanities conference. Tunis, TN: University of 7th November at Carthage.
Bourgeous paranoia and the dismantling of spectatorship. In: Rethinking Marxism. Amherst, US: University of Massachusetts.
Genet among the Palestinians. In: Canadian comparative literature association congress. Toronto, CA: York University.
Prisoner of love. Genet among the Palestinians. In: Culture and the political lecture series. Peterborough, CA: Trent University.
Akerman’s apparatus. In: Film studies association of Canada. London, CA: The University of Western Ontario.
Beyond queer theory: Sex, universality, representation. In: Humanities research day. Peterborough, CA: Trent University.
The schizoanalytic protest. In: Experimenting with intensities: Gilles Deleuze. Peterborough, CA: Trent University.
Against queer theory: On Guy Hocquenghem. In: Department of French seminar series. Nottingham, GB: University of Nottingham.
Fanon and cultural studies. Nottingham, GB: University of Nottingham.
Fanon, Sartre and Marxist universalism. Edinburgh, GB: University of Edinburgh.
From perversion to love: Psychoanalysis and cultural studies. In: Cultural studies program. Peterborough, CA: Trent University.
A gift of quinine: Fanon, Mannoni and colonial dependency. London, GB: Institut Français.
Beyond Atè: Lacan, ethics and the real. London, CA: The University of Western Ontario.
Colonial love: Frantz Fanon’s ambivalent revolutionary object. Ithaca, US: Cornell Society for the Humanities.
Confessions of a medieval sodomite. In: MLA convention. New Orleans, US.
Imaginarizing castration. New Brunswick, US: Rutgers University.
Occluding desire: On Judith Butler. In: Canadian comparative literature association. Quebec, CA: Université Laval.
Beyond Atè: Lacan reads Antigone. In: Reading: A conference of the associated psychoanalytic workgroups. Atlanta, US: Emory University.
The pantomime of truth: Diderot, Hegel and Le neveu de Rameau. In: MLA convention. Washington DC, US.
The spectacle of perversion. In: Graduate program in literature dissertation colloquium. Durham, US: Duke University.
Cleopatra’s nose: Sin according to Pascal. In: MLA convention. San Francisco, US.