Cover not available
Article published In:
Discourse Theory: Ways forward for theory development and research practice
Edited by Benjamin De Cleen, Jana Goyvaerts, Nico Carpentier, Jason Glynos, Yannis Stavrakakis and Ilija Tomanić Trivundža
[Journal of Language and Politics 20:1] 2021
► pp. 95–111

Critical fantasy studies

ORCID logo | University of Essex

Many scholars have drawn attention to the affective power that aspects of discourse and practice exert in our social and political life. Fantasy is a concept that, like structures of feeling, rhetoric, myth, metaphor, and utopia, has generated illuminating explanatory and interpretive insights with which to better understand the operation of this power. In this piece I argue that there are distinctive virtues in affirming the value of the category of fantasy, from a theoretical point of view. Importantly, however, I also argue that the qualification ‘critical’ in Critical Fantasy Studies captures something about how such studies can draw out the normative, ideological, and politico-strategic implications of psychoanalytic insights and observations, and thus become part of a broader enterprise in critical theoretical and empirical research.

Keywords: fantasy, discourse theory, poststructuralism, discourse analysis, post-marxism, normative critique, critique of ideology
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Critical fantasy studies as a frontier of post-Marxist discourse theory
  • 3.Fantasy and/in post-Marxist discourse theory
  • 4.Questions of theory: Fantasy & enjoyment
  • 5.Questions of critique: Normative and ideological critique
  • 6.Concluding caveat: Not all that is not conscious is unconscious
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 14 December 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.20052.gly
References
Best, Beverley, Werner Bonefeld, and Chris O’Kane
eds. 2018 The Sage Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Billig, Michael
1997 “ ‘Discursive, rhetorical and ideological messages.” In The Message of Social Psychology, edited by Craig McGarty and Alexander Haslam, 36–53. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith
2006 Precarious Life: the Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Caspi, Tair
2018 “Towards psychoanalytic contribution to linguistic metaphor theory.” The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 99 (5): 1186–1211. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chang, Wei-Yuan, and Jason Glynos
2011 “Ideology and Politics in the Popular Press: The Case of the 2009 UK MP’s Expenses Scandal.” in Discourse Theory and Critical Media Politics, edited by Lincoln Dahlberg and Sean Phelan, 106–127. London: Palgrave-Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Connolly, William
2008 Capitalism and Christianity, American Style. Durham: Duke. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 Aspirational Fascism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Finlayson, Alan
2012 “Rhetoric and the Political Theory of Ideologies.” Political Studies 60 (4): 751–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glynos, Jason
2010 “Lacan at Work.” In Lacan and Organization, edited by Carl Cederstrom and Casper Hoedemaeker, 13–58. MayFly Books.Google Scholar
2011 “On the Ideological and Political Significance of Fantasy in the Organization of Work.” Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society 16 (4): 373–393. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 “Death, Fantasy, And The Ethics Of Mourning.” In The Social Construction of Death Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Edited by Leen Van Brussel and Nico Carpentier, 137–160. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glynos, Jason and David Howarth
2007 Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory. Abingdon: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glynos, Jason, Joanildo Burity, and Gustavo Oliveira
2019 “Critical Fantasy Studies: Neoliberalism, Education, Identification.” Serie-Estudos 24 (52): 145–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glynos, Jason and Savvas Voutyras
2016 “Ideology as Blocked Mourning: Greek National Identity in Times of Economic Crisis and Austerity.” Journal of Political Ideologies 21 (3): 201–224. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glynos, Jason and Yannis Stavrakakis
2004 “Encounters of the Real Kind: Sussing Out the Limits of Laclau’s Embrace of Lacan.” In Laclau: A Critical Reader, edited by Simon Critchley and Oliver Marchart, 110–128. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lacan, Jacques
2007 Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis. NY: Norton.Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto
1990 New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. London: Verso.Google Scholar
2004 “Glimpsing the Future: A Reply.” In Laclau: A Critical Reader, edited by Simon Critchley and Oliver Marchart, 279–328. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2010 “Politics and the Unconscious: An Interview.” Subjectivity 31: 231–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe
1985 Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson
1980 Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lapping, Claudia and Jason Glynos
2019 “ ‘Two for joy’ – Towards a better understanding of free associative methods as sites of transference in empirical research.” Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society 24 (4): 432–451. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Layton, Lynne
2020 Toward a Social Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martin, James
2014 Politics and Rhetoric: A Critical Introduction. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
2016 “Capturing Desire: Rhetorical Strategies and the Affectivity of Discourse.” British Journal of Politics and International Relations 18 (1): 143–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morelock, Jeremiah
ed. 2018 Critical Theory and Authoritarian Populism. London: University of Westminster Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mouffe, Chantal
1993 The Return of the Political. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Ormrod, James
2014 Fantasy and Social Movements. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Parker, Ian
2010 “Psychosocial studies: Lacanian discourse analysis negotiating interview text.” Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society 15 (2): 156–172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rose, Jacqueline
1996 States of Fantasy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Stavrakakis, Yannis
1999 Lacan & the Political. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2009 “Discourse and Affect: Conceptual and Political Dialectics in Theory and Empirical Analysis.” 59th Annual Meeting. Political Studies Association. Manchester, UK.Google Scholar
Zizek, Slavoj
1989 The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

De Cleen, Benjamin, Jana Goyvaerts, Nico Carpentier, Jason Glynos & Yannis Stavrakakis
2021. Moving discourse theory forward. Journal of Language and Politics 20:1 ► pp. 22 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 april 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.