5 :: SOCIAL THEORY SINCE FREUD
TRAVERSING SOCIAL IMAGINARIES
Whatever these shortcomings, however, the Althusserian/Lacanian model remains
a powerful source of influence in contemporary social theory. Indeed, Althusser’s
Lacan has recently been examined with new interest that concerns the study of
subjectivity, society and culture. Jameson (1990:51–4) argues for a return to the
Lacanian underpinnings of Althusser’s social theory in order to fashion what he
calls a ‘cognitive mapping’ of postmodern symbolic forms. So too, Žižek (1989; 1991)
recasts the Althusserian model of ‘interpellation’ in order to trace the fantasy
identifications created in and through cultural forms such as media and film.
FEMINIST PSYCHOANALYTIC CRITICISM
In recent years, some of the most important conceptual advances in psychoanalytic
social theory have come from feminist debates on sexual subjectivity and gender
hierarchy. Broadly speaking, the major division in psychoanalytic feminism is between
Anglo-American object relations theory on the one hand, and French Lacanian and
post-Lacanian theory on the other. Through the object—relations perspective, feminist
theorists analyse sexuality and gender against the backdrop of interpersonal
relationships—with particular emphasis on the pre-Oedipal child —mother bond.
Post-structuralist feminists indebted to Lacanian psychoanalysis, by contrast,
deconstruct gender terms with reference to the structuring power of the order of
the Symbolic, of language as such. In previous writings, I have explored in detail both
the theoretical and political differences between these competing psychoanalytic
standpoints in feminism and contemporary sexuality studies (Elliott, 2002, 2003).
In what follows, I shall concentrate for the most part upon developments in feminist
theories of sexual difference that draw from, rework or transfigure Lacanian theory.
The central concerns that I touch on include an exploration of the political ramifications
of psychoanalysis; the psychic forces which affect women’s desexualization and lack of
agency in modern culture; the relationship between maternal and paternal power in
infant development; and the connections between sexuality, the body and its pleasures.
For in addressing these issues, feminist psychoanalytic theorists have sought to
enlarge their understandings of polarized sexual identities in modern societies and to
rethink the possibilities for restructuring existing forms of gender power.
Lacanian psychoanalysis is probably the most influential current in feminist social
theory today (cf. Benjamin, 1988; Flax, 1990; and Elliott, 2002, for detailed treatments
of the contributions of the object-relations school of psychoanalysis to feminist
criticism). In Lacan’s deployment of Saussurian linguistics, as noted above, meaning
arises from difference. In the order of language, a signifier attains reference to a
signified through the exclusion of other signifiers. In patriarchal culture, that which is