UNIVERSITÄTSKLINIK FÜR PSYCHOANALYSE UND PSYCHOTHERAPIE
NEUE WIENER GRUPPE * LACAN-SCHULE * SEKTION ÄSTHETIK
YANNIS STAVRAKAKIS
“Authority, Enjoyment and the Spirits of Capitalism”
Lacan’s teaching has the potential to enrich discussions within the social sciences and to suggest fruitful orientations for future
research. It can account for obedience and attachment to organized frameworks of social life in at least two ways. First, by focusing on the symbolic presuppositions of authority and power, on the irresistibility of the Other’s command and the symbolic dependence of
subjectivity; and, second, by exploring the role of fantasy and enjoyment, of the affective domain, in sustaining them and in
neutralizing resistance. Far from introducing any kind of a-historical dualism or essentialism, such a schema allows a thorough grasping of the different and often paradoxical modalities the inter-connection
and mutual engagement between these dimensions can historically acquire. Such an exploration within the milieu of capitalist societies
(from early to late modernity) permits the formulation of a typology of distinct administrations of jouissance (through the social matrices of prohibition and commanded enjoyment and their genealogical - both
synchronic and diachronic - association with different but deeply inter-connected ‘spirits’ of capitalism). In this elaboration,
psychoanalytic reasoning undergoes a series of fruitful encounters with social anthropology, historical research, sociological theory,
social psychology and critical management studies.
Dr. Yannis Stavrakakis studied political science at Panteion University (Athens) and discourse analysis at Essex. He has worked at
the Universities of Essex and Nottingham and is currently Associate Professor at the School of Political Sciences, Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki. His research focuses on the socio-political implications of psychoanalysis. He is the author of Lacan and the Political (Routledge 1999) and The Lacanian Left (Edinburgh University
Press/SUNY Press 2007) and co-editor of Discourse Theory and Political
Analysis (Manchester University Press 2000) and Lacan & Science (Karnac 2002).