The Cultural Logic of Late Critical Rhetoric

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

Obviously this is to refer to Lacan and his influence on cinema theory 
in the last third of the 20th century. These "post-postmodern days" it's 
not that hot anymore, but never mind: It definitely belongs here, since 
Pynchon is picturing Shawn's fascination for Lacanian psychoanalysis in 
"Bleeding Edge".  After he's been starting to see his new therapist, who 
came from Buenos Aires which indeed was the global hotspot for this kind 
of thing at the turn of the century, Shawn says to Maxine: "... And 
after a while I began to see how much Lacanian is like 
Zen.'/'Huh?'/'Total bogosity of the ego, basically. Who you think you 
are isn't who you are at all. Which is much less, and at the same 
time---'/'Much more, yes, thanks for clearing that up, Shawn.'" (BE, p. 
245). Of course, there is satire in this, but I'm not sure that this is 
all. I mean, there's no shortage of adventurous New Age theories and 
therapies that would fit Shawn's Californian roots, but Pynchon gave him 
Lacan. Why? Like in the case of the Deleuze/Guattari mention in Vineland 
this is not quite clear to me. It's a fact, though, that Pynchon now has 
articulated in his novels a certain interest in poststructuralist French 
philosophy twice.  Lacan founded his particular brand of psychoanalysis 
by blending the structural linguistics of Saussure with the philosophy 
of Heidegger; the Zen aspect comes from the latter one.
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When Heidegger met Lacan (photo):
http://progressivegeographies.com/2013/01/11/when-heidegger-met-lacan/
Heidegger and Zen:
http://books.google.de/books/about/Heidegger_und_Zen.html?id=vR28AAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y
Japan and Heidegger:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2385389?uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21104399133987

"Ever since Tanabe Hajime visited Heidegger in 1923, Japanese proponents 
of Zen and the Kyoto School have been interested in his philosophy, and 
have maintained close personal relationship with Heidegger and his 
German followers. On the other hand, Heidegger and his disciples felt 
attracted by Zen and the Kyoto School. This mutual sympathy resulted 
from philosophical affinities such as their common belief in the 
importance of ontology, especially the notion of nothingness, and the 
shared metaphysical aversion towards modern technology."


On 26.07.2014 14:59, Monte Davis wrote:
> Noted in "Walls of Flesh, Bars of Bone," a science-fiction short story 
> by Damien Broderick and Barbara Lamar. The narrator wakes from an 
> unplanned nap.
>
> "I'd drooled on the interdisciplinary dissertation I was meant to be 
> assessing. Psychoanalytic cinema theory, always such fun these 
> post-postmodern days. /Ob(Stet)Rick's: A/ob[gyn]jection, Blood and 
> Blocked de(Sire) in Casa[blank]a/. I closed my eyes again, feeling ill."

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