THE SEMIOTIC REVIEW OF BOOKS VOLUME 11.1 JULY 2000 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/epc/srb ISSN 0847-1622 Editorial: The Spell Dufresne’s central strategy is to provide a de- his later metabiology, bringing out the connnection tailed historical and theoretical accounting of between death, constancy (quantifiable energy by Gary Genosko Freud’s controversial and enormously influential bound and discharged) and pleasure, his goal is to late work Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920; move toward this logical conclusion: “the ideal of If I have one regret from my graduate studies, henceforth, BPP). Dufresne’s Chapter 2, “The Het- constancy signified for Freud the ultimate pleasure from which I now have sufficient distance, it is that erogeneous ‘Beyond’: An Introduction to the Dead of death, that is, the orgasmic release from self” I devoted far too much time to the study of psy- and Dying,” (13-144) provides a “review and re- (51). Dufresne carefully investigates all of Freud’s choanalysis. It was not so much the critical atti- construction, an archaeology of BPP in general, and significant debts to 19th century psychology and tude of the time - reading Freud against Freud — of the theory of the death drive in particular” (13- biology, pointing out the problematic psychoana- that consumed me in the name of the endless prac- 14). There are, it seems, many Beyonds. Dufresne lytic interpretations along the way, with a view to tice of a clever literary criticism, but that many of begins by reviewing biographical material and com- exposing the Freudian view that life is encircled by my colleagues were under the spell of the clinical mentaries on Freud’s disruption of his own inven- death: one is not only already dead, but always be- version, which they wielded as if they held in their tion, his own revisionism, actually, with the late coming-dead (57). Life is a catastrophe or, hands the truth against my unlived textual extrava- addition of the non plus ultra of psychoanalysis, the better, it is framed by two catastrophes: birth and gances. Analysis was, for too many, an intellectual death drive. Freud himself often expressed ambiva- death. (61) Not even a funny accent can lighten lifestyle subsidized by the state and successfully pro- lence about this speculative essay, and this also these proceedings. moted within the university as a pursuit into which describes how it was received; some finding it sim- While Dufresne is entertaining his readers as he only the best and the brightest would be permitted ply bizarre, others aligning it with the despair of Vi- runs through these matters in the manner of a Py- entry. ennese culture, or explaining it as a humanistic in- thon fan running through the skits, he is not play- An excellent text by Todd Dufresne, Tales From heritance of German romanticism (or 19th century ing for laughs: the result is a clear picture of the The Freudian Crypt (2000), is a current example of biological speculations), perhaps reading the essay nihilism of a bioanalytically reworked psychoanaly- Freud-bashing (preferable, I think, to the Critical through the backhanded or overstated praise it con- sis dominated by the death drive. Even last ditch Freud Studies moniker), and the work is annointed tained or failed to contain for those from whom efforts by Sandor Ferenczi to put a little love back with the names of its leading figures, Frederick Freud apparently got the idea in the first place (this in the psychoanalytic heart were, as Dufresne puts Crews and Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen. The latter’s list is long). All of this history of ideas seems a bit it, “too little, too late” (65). candid “Foreword” alerts us to the fundamental is- like a George Romero movie in which a corpse — By the time we get to Melanie Klein’s therapeu- sue at stake in Dufresne’s argument: criticising psy- here in the guise of several young suicides of the tically ambitious entry into the “untapped field” of choanalysis is like trying to put out a fire with gaso- psychoanalytic movement, Victor Tausk and child analysis -paternalistically and patronizingly line — it actually feeds and keeps it alive; or, to use Wilhelm Stekel — thrust its fist through the ground, dubbed “women’s work” by male analysts - the death the death talk that Dufresne prefers, and aficiona- drags itself from the grave, and takes revenge on drive is interpreted through “its representative, the dos of horror films will appreciate: if it’s [always] those who drove it into the ground in the first place, destructive impulse” (69). In this vision, analysis of already dead, you can’t expect to kill it. Borch- namely, Freud and the psychoanalytic establish- the destructive impulse acquires prophylactic Jacobsen puts it this way: “Dufresne is right:let’s ment. If this seems melodramatic, Dufresne reminds power: apparently, child analysis can prevent the leave him [Freud] alone” (xi). Sure, psychoanalysis us that psychoanalysis has a long list of suicides development of later neuroses. Dufresne simulta- is one unforgettable fire (captured beautifully in within its ranks with which to contend (32); and, neously exposes the “twisted” lineage of Freud’s Jean-Paul Sartre’s (1985) screenplay The Freud according to the radically anti-sociological nature metabiology and Klein’s theory of unconscious Scenario with its steady series of struck matches, of the death drive, suicide is an inauthentic act, a phantasy and the “disturbing” fact that child analy- soot and cigar smoke), but if we just leave it alone bit of Eros, a force of sociality that intrudes on the sis actually sacrificed children for the sake of “the it will eventually go out, or away, or as Dufresne path of biology that one’s life is destined to follow. trauma called psychoanalysis” on the altar of the will reveal, remain dead. Even Freud thought this was “extreme.” (32) death drive (79). Psychoanalysis is, then, a lose- In what is part Monty Python sketch and part In the same way that the Monty Python troupe lose proposition. Anyone who points to its clinical forensic hermeneutics, Dufresne goes about the made light of the Black Death with a growing pile triumphs is hiding a great deal about the unsavory business of bringing out the Freudian dead. His short of bodies on a cart pulled through a medieval street, first chapter, “Twilight of the Idols,” investigates the Dufresne heaps together all of the Beyonds — all Contents Pages phenomenon of psychoanalytic followership and the versions of BPP from the Denied, Biographical, Editorial: The Spell 1-2 transference onto the big names, especially Biological, Clinical, Philosophical, and Gary Genosko Jacques Lacan. Key contemporary figures in French Deconstructive — demonstrating, in the process, Sigmund Freud: Savant and Charlatan 3-5 Todd Dufresne psychoanalysis such as Francois Roustang have the great pile that is psychoanalysis and its litera- Remapping Snow’s Gulf 5-7 come to ask themselves: “Why did we follow him tures, all of which is “perhaps a great heap of non- Chris Westbury [Lacan] for so long? (4) Dufresne touches upon all sense” (27). Perhaps. For Dufresne here and there Mindful Semiotics 7-12 the central issues — the innovations of Lacanism hedges his bets, reasserting biographical history Robert E. Innis (theoretical and clinical), institutional struggles, and against theoretical fancies, (28) paying great care Web Site www.chass.utoronto.ca/epc/srb the split between the deep French Freud and lite to the most tendentious of claims, especially con- Mirror Sites American ego psychology, an inheritance of Freud’s cerning the reversal of causality concerning Freud’s Hong Kong http://obelix.lib.hku.hk/semiotic/semiotic Austria www.univie.ac.at/Wissenschaftstheorie/srb contempt for America. Dufresne relates a horror cancer and his later texts, especially BPP which was The Netherlands www.bdk.rug.nl/onderzoek/castor/srb story in which Lacan’s displacement of the ego from evidence of a sort that he had cancer before it was The Semiotic Review of Books is a refereed publication. It is the core of the subject, making it an imaginary func- diagnosed a few years later. While Dufresne lets published three times a year. tion that lacks the clarity and distinctiveness char- David Bakan sound less ridiculous than Wilhelm Rates Canada USA Others acteristically assigned to it in the Cartesian tradi- Reich on this point, he ultimately observes the “can- Individual $30 US $30 US $35 tion, but perfectly in line with Freud’s self-pro- cerous absurdity that sometimes claims interpreta- Institution $40 US $40 US $45 claimed Copernican revolution decentering, not tion” (38). Sometimes. While Dufresne may com- General Editor: Gary Genosko plain about the absence of biographical history in man, but the core of his being, entails a gaping hole Associate Editors: Verena Andermatt Conley, Samir Gandesha, in the person of the analyst: “According to Lacan, psychoanalytically-inspired theory, he will later la- Tom Kemple,Sophie Thomas, Peter van Wyck the silent analyst signifies to the patient an empty ment, in an inspired section on completely deliri- Section Editors: J. Adamson, D. Brooks, Chun Wei Choo, Ersu void, lack, death, the Real.” (10) The analyst is a ous interpretations of psychoanalysis, (39-43) that Ding, M.Harkin, R. Kilbourn, D. Lidov, A. Lippit, F. Manjali, D. cadaver! Transference onto such a lack is impossi- “the history of psychoanalysis is an abyss from which McLennan, M. Peschl, S.H.Riggins, H. Schwarz, S. Segalowitz, S. Simpkins, Q.S. Tong, A. Urbancic, A. Zeller ble and mastery is a “hollow fiction.” This is where there is no recourse” (43). Neither history nor Lakehead Operations Group: Rachel Ariss, Lori Chambers, things really get ugly.