Beyond Discontent: 'Sublimation' from Goethe to Lacan
Author(s): Eckart Goebel (Author), Imke Meyer (Series Editor), James C. Wagner (Translator)
Publisher: Continuum
Publication Date: April 26, 2012
Language: English
Print length: 280 pages
ISBN-10: 1441178333
ISBN-13: 9781441178336
Book Description
According to Freud’s later works, we do not really feel well or free within civilization. Our discontent never disappears, and we shall never become completely reliable members of society. Alcohol already suffices, Freud tells us, to ruin the fragile architecture of sublimations. Since ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle,’ sublimation seems to be nothing more than a euphemism for suppressing the drives. We sublimate because we did not get or were not allowed to have what we ‘actually’ wanted. Is sublimation a mere surrogate or perhaps even the name psychoanalysis found for ‘theoria’ in the twentieth century? With Freud as its pivot, Goebel provides an intellectual history of sublimation, which also serves as an introduction to other key ideas associated with the authors discussed, such as Schopenhauer’s philosophy of music, the will to power in Nietzsche, the structure of Freudian psychoanalysis, Adorno’s concept of modern art, or Lacanian ethics. In examining both its prehistory and reception, Goebel argues that sublimation can be reconsidered as the road toward an individual and social life beyond discontent.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Eckhart Goebel offers lucid and illuminating explorations of the concept of sublimation… [showing] that the notion of sublimation is not so much a single doctrine as a continuing debate on the relationship between the self and nature, the individual and civilization… This review cannot do justice to the richness of Beyond Discontent. Throughout, Goebel’s treatment is thorough without being pedantic, philosophically and theoretically sophisticated without being obscure. Both elegant and accessible, it is the summary and starting point for anyone who would ‘reflect a little longer’ on the complex and ubiquitous doctrine of sublimation.”― Thomas L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State University, USA, Goethe Yearbook
“Goebel reframes a central tenet of Freudian thought, sublimation, to tell an alternative story of modern intellectual history and thought. … Particularly enlightening is the third chapter on Nietzsche and his methodical use of sublimation and its three-dimensionality (culture, individual psychology, philosophy), which Goebel invokes to reexamine central concepts of Nietzsche’s thought. Chapter 6, ‘The Sublimation of Nature: Theodor W. Adorno,’ offers a refreshing perspective on critical theory―and surprising turns to the cultural history of the ‘Grand Hotel’ ―making this an enjoyable read in cultural theory even for those less interested in sublimation. … This is a book for intellectual historians as well as practitioners of psychoanalysis.” –CHOICE
About the Author
Eckart Goebel is Professor of German and Comparative Literature, University of Tübingen, Germany. He is the author of Konstellation und Existenz. Kritik der Geschichte um 1930: Studien zu Heidegger, Benjamin, Jahnn und Musil (1996), Am Ufer der zweiten Welt. Jean Pauls “Poetische Landschaftsmalerei” (1999), Der engagierte Solitär. Die Gewinnung des Begriffs Einsamkeit aus der Phänomenologie der Liebe im Frühwerk Jean-Paul Sartres (2001), Charis und Charisma. Grazie und Gewalt von Winckelmann bis Heidegger (2006) and Jenseits des Unbehagens. Sublimierung von Goethe bis Lacan (2009). He serves on the Editorial Board of Oxford German Studies.
James C. Wagner, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Department of German at New York University, USA.
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