Genet, Lacan and the Ontology of Incompletion

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Bringing Jean Genet and Jacques Lacan into dialogue, James Penney examines the overlooked similarities between Genets literary oeuvre and Lacanian psychoanalysis, uncovering in particular their shared ontology of fragility and incompletion. This book exposes the two thinkers' joint and unwavering ontological conviction that the representations that make up the world of appearances are inherently enigmatic: inscrutable, not only on the level of their problematic link to knowledge and meaning, but also, more fundamentally, as concerns the reliability of their existence. According to Genet and Lacan, the signification of words and images will forever remain unfulfilled, just like the whole of reality, as if prematurely removed from the oven, under-baked. Genet, Lacan and the Ontology of Incompletion reveals how, in the same manner as Lacans psychoanalytic act, Genets acts of poetry further seek to expose the fragile prop that holds our reality together, baring the fissures in being for which fantasy normally compensates. Moving away from scholarship that considers Genets plays, novels, sexuality and politics in isolation, Penney explores the whole span of Genets work, from his early novels to the posthumously-published Prisoner of Love and, combining this with psychoanalysis, opens up new avenues for thinking about Genet, Lacan and our wanting being.

Reviews

A much needed, illuminating and beautifully-written book. Philosophical and Lacanian concepts that typically remain mired in obscurity spring to life in Penneys text. A more masterly treatment of the relationship between the writings of Lacan and Genet indeed, between psychoanalysis and poetry will not be forthcoming. * Derek Hook, Professor of Psychology, Duquesne University, United States *
Penney engages the most significant readings of Genet's work while offering fresh analyses of his own. The latter derive their subtety and strength from the vigilant attention they give to the wobbly, disjunct, relations that unite sexual pleasure and language. Political structures, Penney shows, sway with this imbalance. * Joan Copjec, Professor of Modern Culture & Media, Brown University, United States *
James Penney's book is a delightfully fresh account of Jean Genet, whose work seems to be gaining in relevance as time goes on. Remarkably rich in detail and insight, the book presents us with a compelling rendering of Genet's ontology and a powerful theory of the poetic act. * Alenka Zupancic, Professor of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, The European Graduate School, Switzerland *

Author Bio

James Penney is Professor of Cultural Studies and French and Francophone Studies at Trent University, Canada. He is the author of After Queer Theory: The Limits of Sexual Politics (2014), The Structures of Love: Art and Politics Beyond the Transference (2012), and The World of Perversion: Psychoanalysis and the Impossible Absolute of Desire (2006).