The Psychoanalysis of Race

by Christopher Lane

Book Overview

Are divisive political forces the source of the historical persistence of racism and its alarming recurrence in contemporary society? Or are there also subtler, more intractable reasons for racism's irrational power and historical persistence? This collection of essays takes the study of racism into a radically new direction----that of unconscious fantasies and identities----offering perspectives from a variety of leading figures in many fields.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231109474
• ISBN13: 9780231109475
• Release Date: July 1998
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.9"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

really good

this is an excellent collection, full of valuable insights and arguments. well worth the money.

Lacking the Power to Solve This

Consider this book, in its thoughtful approach to a socialproblem, possibly the best that anyone could expect to find amongthose who might consider making suggestions to those astute professionals who have the right to think of themselves the most modern of moderns. I doubt if I could ever find a better line than the one addressed by Jacques Derrida, in a plea for specific opposition to the brutal methods adopted by powers in Latin America, on page 81, "and this on the very face of the earth itself." On pages 68 and 69, Derrida made it clear that he considered himself an outsider, who could easily have his remarks "classified and forgotten even more quickly," when he was addressing a professional body on Geopsychoanalysis. Having been born in Africa, Derrida had spent his youth on a continent where "African psychoanalysis was European, structurally defined in the profoundest way by the colonial state apparatus." When I was young, I pictured our contacts with outsiders as the work of missionaries. Removing the notion of evil, as a total triumph of the state of mind of global capitalism must, if it is to consider the problem of race like it would consider anything else, leaves individuals to frame this problem in their own way. On the subject of Africa, Christopher Lane's remarks on "Savage Ecstasy" and Tim Dean's attempt to tie the disease of "Mistah Kurtz" (p. 306) in the famous story, "Heart of Darkness" to "the Historiography of AIDS" leave a distinct impression. For me to understand this book would require a look at the ways in which it treats Frantz Fanon, whom I might consider an agitator. The more one attempts to locate an element of control here, the greater the problem seems to be. Awareness of the ability of those who serve the existing public order as mind doctors to drug, or not to drug, certain individuals (the real power of a doctor's pen, in a world of highly profitable drugs) is of hardly any benefit to a society which would like to obtain as much control as possible over the lives of those who seek any excuse that they can find (my accusation against the agitators of race) to disrupt the operation of power. As well as the picture is framed here, I do not see race as a problem which is likely to find a solution through the actions of individuals who have assumed a professional obligation to classify individuals on the basis of how well they serve the social system. There is a chapter on "The Comedy of Domination" by Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks, which looks closely at Freud, a sure sign of "malicious mischief and sly humor." (p.360) This book remains insightful, on a matter which is likely to remain a real problem for those who must deal with personal problems worthy of delicate consideration, throughout.

A valuable anthology

I liked the clarity of these essays, and learned a great deal about prejudice and racial tensions. Nothing I've read so far better explains the problems we're seeing now in the former Yugoslavia and other parts of the world.