Oedipus's Daughter

Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 2004, Vol 49(5), 540–542. Reviews Imagine there's no woman: Ethics and sublimation (see record 2003-02392-000). The reviewer experienced at least four benefits from reading this book. First, by relating Lacan to art, theater, and film, Copjec makes Lacanian theory available to the clinician. Next, Copjec's reading of Lacan's rereading of Freud reawakens and enlivens interest in Freud. A third reason is that Copjec engages her reader in a new experience of feminism, ethics, narcissism, sublimation, and evil. Finally, approaching ethics through the perspective of psychoanalysis, Copjec demonstrates the relevance of psychoanalysis in understanding society and culture. The reviewer, however, did not find Lacan or Copjec easy to read and was puzzled by the title of the book. What does it mean to imagine there is no woman? What is the relationship between ethics and sublimation? How is the first part of her book on the feminine act of sublimation related to evil and the eye of the beholder, the topic of the second half of the book? Why is there all this talk of Kant? Despite these questions, the reviewer argues that the power of Copjec's writing is that it provokes thought about ethics, psychoanalysis, feminism, and evil. She does not tell her readers what to think but engages the reader in thinking with Freud and Lacan. It is a rich and challenging conversation to be invited into. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)