Duane Rousselle | |
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Born | April 28, 1982 42) Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada | (age
Alma mater | University of New Brunswick, Trent University, European Graduate School |
Awards | Governor General of Canada Gold Medal, Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick Medal |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Psychoanalysis, sociological theory, anarchist theory |
Academic advisors | Slavoj Žižek, Alain Badiou, Davide Panagia |
Website | http://www.DuaneRousselle.com |
Duane Rousselle (born April 28, 1982) is a Canadian sociological theorist, Lacanian psychoanalyst, [1] and Professor of Sociology. [2] He works in several academic fields including Social Movement Studies, Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Cultural Sociology, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Anarchist Studies, and Continental Philosophy. His work attempts to introduce an alternative to scholarly discourses that aim to produce consistent and coherent bodies of knowledge (e.g., "University Discourse"). It also offers a counterpoint to what Jacques Lacan has called "capitalist discourse."
He helped to contribute to the emergence of a new field of scholarly investigation known as "post-anarchism." He founded and edits the journal Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies. [3] He is a noted Canadian public intellectual. [4] He is often referred to as among the second generation of the Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis alongside Todd McGowan. [5] His work has been translated into multiple languages, including Russian, Arabic, Turkish, and Spanish.
Duane was born in Miramichi, New Brunswick to Catholic parents. He attended the New Brunswick Community College and graduated with a diploma in Electronic Game Design. [6] [7] After participating in a hunger strike for admittance, he was accepted as a Sociology Major at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. During this first year of his university education, he experienced devastating poverty, sleeping on park benches. He received numerous prestigious awards, including the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick silver medal for excellence in scholarship. [8] [9]
He went on to complete a master's degree in sociology from the University of New Brunswick before joining the PhD program in Cultural Studies from Trent University. [10] During his time in Peterborough, he became a Freemason. [11] He was awarded the Governor General of Canada Gold Medal for his research into clinical psychoanalysis and continental philosophy. [12]
He studied also at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, [13] working as an assistant for Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou.
In 2016, Duane raised more than $100,000 to help rebuild a mosque that was attacked in a hate crime in Peterborough, Ontario. [14] [15] His efforts received international attention and he was invited for a private meeting with the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. [16] This was the subject of a documentary film by Matthew Hayes, The Masjid. [17] [18] Duane received several death threats at this time and went into hiding. [19]
Duane converted to Islam in order to marry his former partner. [20] This relationship was documented by Colin Boyd Shafer in his documentary photo exhibit Interlove Project. [21] [22]
In 2019, Duane moved to Mumbai. In 2020, he returned to Canada and accepted an appointment to teach at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Nipissing University. [23] In 2021, he became engaged to the "negative psychoanalyst" Julie Reshe. [24] Rousselle taught psychology and sociology at a university in Tyumen, Siberia, but fled to Kazakhstan with his fiancée and their daughter following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [25]
Duane is a Visiting associate professor of sociology at the University College of Dublin. [26] He currently holds the position of Associate Dean of Research and Associate Professor at the Aga Khan University. [27] In 2024, he established a psychoanalysis circle in Pakistan. [28]
One of Duane's key theories is that there has been a rise in the logic of 'particular affirmations' of enjoyment after what Slavoj Zizek and others referred to as the decline of symbolic efficiency. These 'particular affirmations' are capable of producing the same results as modern fascism without any need of prohibitions against particular segments of the population. [29] This logic has developed out of close readings of the late teachings of Jacques Lacan and the seminars of Jacques-Alain Miller. His argument was central to a debate with the noted philosopher Slavoj Zizek. [30]
One of his major projects has been to perform a torsion of the work of the Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis, resituating their theories into another register [31] In several published debates between himself and Slavoj Zizek he has advanced critiques of their theories of ideology, constitutive lack, surplus jouissance, totality, and capitalism to arrive at a distinctively anarchist psychoanalytic theory of contemporary politics.
Duane has argued that the dream is a meta-verse and that today we dream outside of ourselves. [32] He argues that there are today the perpetuation of false negativities, which are actually fawnings/faux-negs of jouissance or enjoyment. The argument is that our satisfactions are perpetuated through naive notions of cynicism, negativity, criticality, and so on. [33]
In recent work, Duane has argued that theories of the death drive within Freudo-Marxism have led to misleading characterizations of the concept of negativity. He has claimed that the concept of negativity actually demonstrates positive fixations of jouissance. He has claimed that much of radical leftist continental philosophy today promotes “false negatives” and “false twists.”
His work focuses on what he terms “feudal fixations” which remain present within so-called contemporary capitalism. His claim is that we are today in a sort of “plat-farm” capitalism, which is really capitalism in a feudal mode. This has led to a controversial statement that “capitalism would be an advancement.” [34]
Duane has argued that psychoanalytic sociology is "not a sociology of psychoanalysis," but rather "the psychoanalyst's sociology." [35] He remarks that the psychoanalyst's sociology begins with what is singular, that is, with what remains resolutely non-social. Hence, against pragmatic sociology, psychoanalysis focuses on what doesn't work and the inexistence of the social relationship.
Year | Award |
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2015 | Governor General of Canada Gold Medal |
2007 | Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick Medal |
2007 | Nels Anderson Prize in Sociology |
2007 | Queen's Jubilee Award |
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris, from 1953 to 1981, and published papers that were later collected in the book Écrits. Transcriptions of his seminars, given between 1954 and 1976, were also published. His work made a significant impact on continental philosophy and cultural theory in areas such as post-structuralism, critical theory, feminist theory and film theory, as well as on the practice of psychoanalysis itself.
Psychoanalytic film theory is a school of academic thought that evokes the concepts of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. The theory is closely tied to Critical theory, Marxist film theory, and Apparatus theory. The theory is separated into two waves. The first wave occurred in the 1960s and 70s. The second wave became popular in the 1980s and 90s.
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian Marxist philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual.
Jouissance is a French language term held untranslatable into English.
In continental philosophy, the Real refers to the demarcation of reality that is correlated with subjectivity and intentionality. In Lacanianism, it is an "impossible" category because of its opposition to expression and inconceivability. The Real Order is a topological ring (lalangue) and ex-sists as an infinite homonym.
[T]he real in itself is meaningless: it has no truth for human existence. In Lacan's terms, it is speech that "introduces the dimension of truth into the real."
Four discourses is a concept developed by French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. He argued that there were four fundamental types of discourse. He defined four discourses, which he called Master, University, Hysteric and Analyst, and suggested that these relate dynamically to one another.
Freudo-Marxism is a loose designation for philosophical perspectives informed by both the Marxist philosophy of Karl Marx and the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud. Its history within continental philosophy began in the 1920s and '30s and running since through critical theory, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and post-structuralism.
Sinthome is a concept introduced by Jacques Lacan in his seminar Le sinthome (1975–76). It redefines the psychoanalytic symptom in terms of the role of the subject outside of analysis, where enjoyment is made possible through creative identification with the symptom.
Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left is a collaborative book by the political theorists Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj Žižek published in 2000.
Ian Parker is a British psychologist and psychoanalyst. He is Emeritus Professor of Management in the School of Business at the University of Leicester.
Lacanian Ink is a cultural journal based in New York City and founded in 1990 by Josefina Ayerza. The purpose of the publication was to provide the American intellectual scene with the theoretical perspective of European post-structuralism. It features major analyses of psychoanalytic theory, poetry, philosophy and contemporary art. A distinctive element of its contents is the dissemination of the work of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, whereby the seminars given by Jacques-Alain Miller at Paris VIII on Lacanian theory have become available in English.
Néstor Alberto Braunstein was an Argentine-Mexican physician, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis, also known as the Ljubljana Lacanian School, is a popular name for a school of thought centred on the Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Philosophers related to School include Rastko Močnik, Slavoj Žižek, Mladen Dolar, Alenka Zupančič, Miran Božovič and Eva Bahovec. Other scholars associated with the school include philosophers Simon Hajdini, Zdravko Kobe, Rado Riha, Jelica Šumič Riha, sociologist Renata Salecl and philosopher Peter Klepec.
Psychoanalytic sociology is the research field that analyzes society using the same methods that psychoanalysis applies to analyze an individual.
The Sublime Object of Ideology is a 1989 book by the Slovenian philosopher and cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek. The work is widely considered his masterpiece.
In media studies, interpassivity is the phenomenon whereby a piece of art or technology seems to act on the audience or user's behalf; it is the opposite of interactivity. The meaning of the term was interpreted mainly by Robert Pfaller in 1996, and was quickly taken up by Slavoj Žižek.
Walter A. "Mac" Davis is an American philosopher, critic, and playwright. He is Professor Emeritus of English at Ohio State University and the author of eight books. Davis has also taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His theoretical work engages critically with psychoanalysis, Marxism, existentialism, Hegelian dialectics and postmodernism. For a more general audience, he has written plays and two volumes of essays in cultural criticism.
Lacanianism or Lacanian psychoanalysis is a theoretical system that explains the mind, behaviour, and culture through a structuralist and post-structuralist extension of classical psychoanalysis, initiated by the work of Jacques Lacan from the 1950s to the 1980s. Lacanian perspectives contend that the human mind is structured by the world of language, known as the Symbolic. They stress the importance of desire, which is conceived of as perpetual and impossible to satisfy. Contemporary Lacanianism is characterised by a broad range of thought and extensive debate among Lacanians.
Lorenzo Chiesa is a philosopher, critical theorist, translator, and professor whose academic research and works focus on the intersection between ontology, psychoanalysis, and political theory.
Bruce Fink is an American Lacanian psychoanalyst and a major translator of Jacques Lacan. He is the author of numerous books on Lacan and Lacanian psychoanalysis, prominent among which are Lacan to the Letter: Reading Écrits Closely, The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance (1995), Lacan on Love: An Exploration of Lacan's Seminar VIII and A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and Technique.