Poststructuralist Agency

The Subject in Twentieth-Century Theory

Gavin Rae (Associate Professor, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain)

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English

Edinburgh University Press
23 March 2022

Deconstructionism, Structuralism, Post-structuralism; Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology; Social & political philosophy

Gavin Rae shows that the problematic status of agency caused by the poststructuralist decentring of the subject is a central concern for poststructuralist thinkers. First, Rae shows how this plays out in the thinking of Deleuze, Derrida and Foucault. He then demonstrates that it is with those poststructuralists associated with and influenced by Lacanian psychoanalysis that this issue most clearly comes to the fore. He goes on to reveal that the conceptual schema of Cornelius Castoriadis best explains how the founded subject is capable of agency.

By: Gavin Rae (Associate Professor Universidad Complutense de Madrid Spain)
Imprint: Edinburgh University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 15mm
Weight: 408g
ISBN: 9781474459365
ISBN 10: 1474459366
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 23 March 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction Part I: Decentring the Subject 1. Deleuze, Differential Ontology and Subjectivity 2. Derrida’s Différance: Deconstruction and the Sexuality of Subjectivity 3. Foucault I: Power and the Subject 4. Foucault II: Normativity, Ethics and the Self Part II: Turning to the Psyche 5. Butler on the Subjection of Gendered Agency 6. Lacan on the Unconscious Subject: From the Social to the Symbolic 7. Kristeva on the Subject of Revolt: The Symbolic and the Semiotic 8. Castoriadis, Agency and the Socialised Individual Conclusion Bibliography, Index

Gavin Rae is Associate Professor (Accredited to Professor) in the Department of Logic and Theoretical Philosophy at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. His research interests lie in nineteenth and twentieth century European philosophy, where he works at the intersection of socio-political philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, ontology, and ethics. Besides over sixty published articles and book chapters, he has published seven monographs, most recently Questioning Sexuality: From Psychoanalysis to Gender Theory and Beyond (Edinburgh University Press, 2024) and Poststructuralist Agency: The Subject in Twentieth-Century Theory (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), and co-edited seven volumes, the most recent of which are Transformation in Contemporary French Theory (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming—with Emma Ingala and Cillian Ó Fathaigh), Critique and Political Reason: Exploring Critical Theory (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming—with Emma Ingala and Cillian Ó Fathaigh), Philosophy across Borders (Routledge, 2025—with Emma Ingala), and Subjective Agency and Poststructuralism (Routledge, 2025—with Cillian Ó Fathaigh).

Reviews for Poststructuralist Agency: The Subject in Twentieth-Century Theory

Poststructuralist Agency discusses how poststructuralist subject is not merely a void, offering no subjectivity, no agency and thus no politics but rather offers all of this in a decentered and contingent form. Many books skirt around poststructuralism's positive formulations 　but Gavin Rae’s book does the hard work of showing just how this actually happens. * James R. Martel, San Francisco State University *