Feminism and Psychoanalysis: The Daughter's Seduction (Language, Discourse, Society)

The Daughter's Seduction examines the relation between contemporary feminism and the psychoanalytical theories of Jacques Lacan. Through readings of the major texts that stand at the intersection of French psychoanalysis and feminism, it confronts, boldly and directly, such topics as sexual difference, desire, reading. writing. power. family. phallocentrism, and language. In doing so, Jane Gallup not only illuminates current French psychoanalytic and feminist thinking, but also explores contemporary American and British thought.... Gallop begins by questioning a number of feminist assumptions, through the agency of Lacanian psychoanalysis, and ends by using feminist writing to question certain psychoanalytic positions. In the course of the book, the reader watches and participates in a complex seduction as feminism (the daughter) gives up her resistance to psychoanalysis (the father). The father in turn surrenders his impassive self-mastery and betrays his desires. Renouncing their familial roles of daughter and father, they may be able to escape the vicious circle in which they have been imprisoned. --- excerpts from book's dustjacket