{"id":6957,"date":"2009-10-27T17:15:11","date_gmt":"2009-10-27T22:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=6957"},"modified":"2013-04-12T07:05:14","modified_gmt":"2013-04-12T12:05:14","slug":"discourse-social-fictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2009\/10\/27\/discourse-social-fictions\/","title":{"rendered":"discourse social fictions excluded objet a"},"content":{"rendered":"

Campbell, Kirsten. Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology.<\/em> Florence, KY, USA: Routledge, 2004. p 127-128<\/p>\n

In my earlier model of feminist discourse, I propose that feminist knowledges articulate what a phallocentric Symbolic order does not represent. In this model, these knowledges articulate the symbolic a<\/span> of discourse. By linking this model to the theory of social fictions, it becomes possible to include an account of intersubjective relations. The theory of social fictions gives social content to the concept of \u2018discourse\u2019, which otherwise functions as an abstract term.<\/p>\n

Social fictions produce imaginary identities<\/span>. These identities collapse fantasies of self and the \u2018idealizing capital I<\/span> of identification\u2019 (S11: 272), so that they operate as the phantasy that \u2018I am a woman\u2019 or \u2018I am a man\u2019 and so on. We can therefore understand social fictions as producing the self as imaginary<\/strong> a<\/span> \u2013 an imaginary object filled with phantasmic content (the objet petit a<\/span>):<\/p>\n

Social fictions: s-s-s-s-s-s identity (imaginary a<\/span>)<\/p>\n

However, Zizek points out that the a<\/span> \u2018stands simultaneously for the imaginary fantasmic lure\/screen and for that which this lure is obfuscating, for the void behind the lure\u2019 (1998a: 80). Social fictions therefore have imaginary and symbolic registers:<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Social fictions: s-s-s-s-s-s identity | symbolic a<\/span><\/p>\n

That \u2018void behind the lure\u2019 is the symbolic a, that which marks the excluded term of discourse, the gap in or void of its symbolic structure.<\/p>\n

Feminism traverses the phantasies of identities that social fictions produce, insisting that those social discourses found themselves upon a repudiated term. This recognition of the symbolic a<\/span> of social fictions symbolizes it, so that it no longer functions as a term which social discourse excludes. Like psychoanalytic discourse, feminist discourse seeks to sustain the distance between the imaginary object and identity so that it becomes possible to articulate the repudiated a<\/span> of discourse. Unlike psychoanalytic discourse, feminism seeks to interrogate social discourses. Feminist discourse symbolizes the excluded a<\/span> in relation to social fictions as descriptions of social relations. A feminist politics permits recognition of this founding lack or excluded a<\/span> term of social fictions. This repudiated other is the a<\/span>, the excluded and necessary term of that discourse. Feminist knowledges link that excluded a<\/span> to women<\/span>.<\/p>\n

For example, two classical themes of feminist analysis concern the exclusion of particular realities of gendered identity from the social representation of women, whether the unequal distribution of wealth between men and women, or the cost of a normative \u2018feminine\u2019 identity. In each case, feminist discourses identify the social discourses of gender and the reality of the social experience of women that those discourses exclude. Social fictions represent a fictional identity that excludes from that representation the complex and specific social experiences of women.<\/span><\/p>\n

An example of this operation can be seen in sexual difference. The operation of social fictions substitutes an imaginary and fictional myth of \u2018The Woman\u2019 for the complexity of social experience of women<\/strong>. In their operation, social fictions repudiate that reality and put in its place certain fictional ways to be a female subject. For example, those fictional representations of \u2018The Woman\u2019 render her as \u2018sexuality\u2019. Yet at the same time, those representations refuse the real bodies of women that have physical existence and functions, a refusal that manifests itself in an array of social taboos that surround the female body. This conception of social fictions does not claim that \u2018women\u2019 do not exist (either as fact or in discourse). However, social fictions produce their social experiences as the excluded of discourse, namely as its repudiated a<\/span> term.<\/p>\n

This excluded a<\/span> of social fictions is the \u2018real<\/span>\u2019 of women<\/span>. Social fictions do not represent the \u2018reality\u2019 of women\u2019s experience<\/strong> \u2013 an experience of oppression and domination as well as pleasure and desire …<\/p>\n

That excluded term, the symbolic a<\/span>, is an effect of discourse, just as much as the social fiction is<\/span>. Social discourses produce it as a term that is excluded from a hegemonic ordering of representation.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Campbell, Kirsten. Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology. Florence, KY, USA: Routledge, 2004. p 127-128 In my earlier model of feminist discourse, I propose that feminist knowledges articulate what a phallocentric Symbolic order does not represent. In this model, these knowledges articulate the symbolic a of discourse. By linking this model to the theory of social … Continue reading “discourse social fictions excluded objet a”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,119,72,96,90,94,114,15,118,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lacan","category-language","category-objet-a","category-phallus-butler","category-resistance","category-sexual-difference","category-sexuation","category-subjectivity","category-symbolic","category-the-real"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6957"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10794,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6957\/revisions\/10794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}