Untying Things Together
Philosophy, Literature, and a Life in Theory
9780226816470
9780226816463
9780226816487
Untying Things Together
Philosophy, Literature, and a Life in Theory
Untying Things Together helps to clarify the stakes of the last fifty years of literary and cultural theory by proposing the idea of a sexuality of theory.
In 1905, Freud published his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, the book that established the core psychoanalytic thesis that sexuality is central to formations of the unconscious. With this book, Eric L. Santner inverts Freud’s title to take up the sexuality of theory—or, more exactly, the modes of enjoyment to be found in the kinds of critical thinking that, since the 1960s, have laid claim to that ancient word, “theory.” Santner unfolds his argument by tracking his own relationship with this tradition and the ways his intellectual and spiritual development has been informed by it.
Untying Things Together is both an intellectual history of major theoretical paradigms and a call for their reexamination and renewal. Revisiting many of the topics he has addressed in previous work, Santner proposes a new way of conceptualizing the eros of thinking, attuned to how our minds and bodies individually and collectively incorporate or “encyst” on a void at the heart of things. Rather than proposing a “return to theory,” Santner’s book simply employs theory as a way of further “(un)tying together” the resources of philosophy, art and literature, theology, psychoanalysis, political thought, and more.
In 1905, Freud published his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, the book that established the core psychoanalytic thesis that sexuality is central to formations of the unconscious. With this book, Eric L. Santner inverts Freud’s title to take up the sexuality of theory—or, more exactly, the modes of enjoyment to be found in the kinds of critical thinking that, since the 1960s, have laid claim to that ancient word, “theory.” Santner unfolds his argument by tracking his own relationship with this tradition and the ways his intellectual and spiritual development has been informed by it.
Untying Things Together is both an intellectual history of major theoretical paradigms and a call for their reexamination and renewal. Revisiting many of the topics he has addressed in previous work, Santner proposes a new way of conceptualizing the eros of thinking, attuned to how our minds and bodies individually and collectively incorporate or “encyst” on a void at the heart of things. Rather than proposing a “return to theory,” Santner’s book simply employs theory as a way of further “(un)tying together” the resources of philosophy, art and literature, theology, psychoanalysis, political thought, and more.
256 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2022
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory, Germanic Languages
Philosophy: General Philosophy
Reviews
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction On Some Causes for Excitement
Chapter One A Life in Theory
Chapter Two Theory and the Jewish Question
Chapter Three Too Much Sad
Chapter Four Caninical Theory
Chapter Five The Manafold of Experience
Chapter Six Will Wonders Never Cease: Remarks on Post-Thaumatic Stress Disorder
Chapter Seven The Stranger Order of Things
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Index
Introduction On Some Causes for Excitement
Chapter One A Life in Theory
Chapter Two Theory and the Jewish Question
Chapter Three Too Much Sad
Chapter Four Caninical Theory
Chapter Five The Manafold of Experience
Chapter Six Will Wonders Never Cease: Remarks on Post-Thaumatic Stress Disorder
Chapter Seven The Stranger Order of Things
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Index