Molly Anne Rothenberg’s book Excessive Subjects is the book Žižek always wanted to write but can’t, either because he is unable to grasp what he continually was circling around, which Rothenberg saw and rectified in her book, or Žižek can’t bring himself to criticize Butler in the devastating manner with which Rothenberg accomplishes this task. The chapter on Butler is a devastating critique of what Rothenberg views as Butler’s totally mistaken, misunderstanding and gross misuse of psychoanalytic theory. Rothenberg’s pseudo-Lacanian approach in this book argues that what is key in subject formation is the notion of ‘excess’ or the ‘addition of negation’. Things start to really happen around page 30 when Rothenberg adeptly interprets Badiou using the analogy of a dimly lit garage. You have to read this part a couple of times it’s fascinating, but once the distinction between being and objects is understood, then you are only a hop, skip, jump away from understanding Rothenberg’s general thesis. I have just read the chapter on Butler, and I feel that although Rothenberg makes some good points, she nevertheless limits her treatment of Butler to one work, Excitable Speech (which is my least favourite work btw). In this work, Butler is still agonizingly trying to articulate a conception of agency that is, I feel, better laid out in The Psychic Life of Power. Rothenberg’s two critical points being centred on a criticism of Butler’s interpretation of Austin’s speech act theory and what is quickly becoming the achilles heel of Butler’s theory of agency, her interpretation of psychoanalytic theory. Rothenberg’s criticism of Butler’s take on Lacan is unrelenting. The rumblings began a few years ago regarding Butler’s uptake of the term “foreclosure” and it hits a crescendo pitch in Rothenberg’s chapter. However Butler could really take issue with Rothernberg’s curt dismissal of Butler regarding that latter’s take on Foucault. I believe Butler is a more complex Foucaultian, and as she argues in The Psychic Life of Power her understanding and use of Foucault is complex and attentive to the shortcomings of his theory of agency. I am eager to get into the chapter on Laclau.
Note: the binding job on this book by Polity Press is horrible. This book is falling apart after only 2 days of very polite and gentle handling. Buyer beware!