Masochism: The Art of Power

(Hardback)

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How does the male masochist provide a metaphor for modern and postmodern power Through a study of the representations of masochism in literature, psychopathology, philosophy, and cultural theory, Mansfield challenges our fundamental assumptions about masculine power in the postmodern era, arguing that masculine power has become masochistic. In the later twentieth century, the author argues, power presents itself as powerlessness but this deconstruction of traditional masculine authority does not result in a diminution of power. This provocative account traces masochism through the writings of Krafft-Ebing, Sacher-Masoch, Freud, Sartre, Proust, Genet, and Foucault.

Reviews

"Through an investigation of key modernist texts such as Joyce's Ulysses, Bataille's Story of the Eye, and Genet's Miracle of the Rose, [Mansfield] shows how masochism eludes the binary opposition of the submissive to the dominant.... The author warns the postmodernist not to become entangled in the self/Other game because the masochist's power is simultaneously the center and its circumference, a theatrical space of power indifferent to the oppressive hierarchies operating in the culture. A vaulable book for students and scholars of literary theory, sexuality, and modern culture."-Choice
Through an investigation of key modernist texts such as Joyce's Ulysses, Bataille's Story of the Eye, and Genet's Miracle of the Rose, [Mansfield] shows how masochism eludes the binary opposition of the submissive to the dominant.... The author warns the postmodernist not to become entangled in the self/Other game because the masochist's power is simultaneously the center and its circumference, a theatrical space of power indifferent to the oppressive hierarchies operating in the culture. A vaulable book for students and scholars of literary theory, sexuality, and modern culture.-Choice

Author Bio

NICK MANSFIELD is Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He has studied at the University of Sydney, Columbia University, and Yale University. His articles on literary and cultural studies have appeared in a number of international journals.