Enjoying an Empty Edifice

This paper reaffirms the methodological potentials of Lacanian psychoanalysis for the theories of nationalism. From the Lacanian perspective, national consciousness and self-determination are only possible in the fantasmatic frame­work through the (mis)recognition and retroactive construction. National imagination is the form of transference, necessary for performing the nation through invented traditions and rituals. However, beyond symbolization and imaginary (mis)recognition, there is always something that resists closure, linked with the subjects' desire and organized around the lack of the subjects' full enjoyment. Taking together all these aspects, we build an analytical framework for the study of nationalism, which comprises a quadruple system of identifications by referring to the concepts of Ideal-Ego, Ego-Ideal, Super-Ego and specular Other, and illustrate it through the example of the AKP's Turkish nationalism.

“He dwells alone:” The Image of Completeness in the Self in Cowper’s “The Snail”

Following the critical lines of Psychoanalysis and Existentialism, the present study aims at conveying how William Cowper, the much acclaimed English poet of the 18th century, presents in his 1799 poem “The Snail” the image of an individual possessing completeness in the self. Not only is Cowper’s snail content with life in seclusion, but also abhors the intrusion of an outsider in its private domain. The article aims at investigating how the snail’s world of completeness bears both the somatic and the psychic dimensions and also how the creature exists in that world narcissistically. Concomitantly, the article would probe into the association between the world of the snail and the poet’s longing to attain sufficiency in the self at a time he is left alone. It would be conveyed how the snail of the poem embodies the poet’s projected self in its idealised form, something which following the French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan can be called the poet’s “ideal ego,” than an insignificant creature engrossed merely in nourishment on vegetation. Keywords: Cowper, completeness, private world, self, The Snail.

Seeing Things Within and Beyond The Mirror: An Analysis Of “The Lady In The Looking Glass: A Reflection”

Virginia Woolf a highly appreciated writer both for her literary-critical insight and innovative writing techniques explores the role and character of women in society to reveal the truth and reality of their nature. Woolf in her works surfaces forth the inner discomfort of apparently integrated and a whole individual. In “The Lady in The Looking Glass: A Reflection” (1929) Woolf employs the stream of consciousness technique to communicate the thoughts of a narrator who ponders an image of Isabella Tyson to unveil the nature of truth and reality of her person by opening the intricate layers of her appearance. This paper explores the concept of the split self with reference to the character of Isabella to see the impact of the other on/in the construction of self. Lacan’s concept of the mirror stage is used as a theoretical framework to see how Isabella’s character is put in the external symbolic order and is alienated from its own history to examine how the self can be conceptualized and affected by the interplay of various forces and the inside form in and through other. This study demonstrates that Isabella’s self-image is the distorted product of the ideal ego and ego ideal and is made and changed by acting towards others to make them believe what they see in her as true of her.

Pola Asuh Demokrasi dan Nilai-Nilai Agama Dalam Keluarga di Lingkungan Beragam Agama Desa Suka Julu Dusun III Jumpa

This service aims at this service is Building a pattern of Democratic Care and Building the values of Religion. It should be understood that the family is two or more individuals who live in one household because of the relationship of blood, marriage and interacting with one another, having their respective roles by creating and maintaining a culture. The environment that is first encountered by children is the family environment. In the family of course there are religious values born from generation to generation and carried by the family. Whereas religious experience is an element of feeling in religious consciousness, namely the feeling that leads to beliefs generated by actions or amaliyah. Suka Julu Village Hamlet III Jumpa is one of the villages located in Karo land with diverse religious communities although it is dominated by Karo tribes in the area around Berastagi city. In customs, girls are not allowed to talk with their father. In addition, there is still a lack of planting of religious values. There are still those who do not have strong religious beliefs, so that on Christmas day, there are still Muslims who follow Christian activities and vice versa. This is certainly confusing for children. So that it will give birth to children who lack confidence. Personality dynamics actively influence human activities. Spiritual energy functions to regulate spiritual activities such as thinking, remembering, observing and so on. The instinct function regulates primary needs: eating, drinking and sexual. The ego has the function of adjusting impulse adjustment with objective reality. While Super Ego functions as a giver of inner rewards (satisfied, happy, successful) and punishment (guilt, sin, regret). The reward is played by the ideal ego, and inner punishment is carried out by the conscience. This activity was carried out to foster democratic upbringing and religious values in families in various religious environments in a tribe.

They think they find themselves: radical violence and narcissistic-identity suffering

This article proposes a model of individual violent radicalisation leading to acts of terrorism. After reviewing the role of group regression and the creation of group psychic apparatus, the article will examine how violent radicalisation, by the reversal of the importance of the superego and the ideal ego, serves to compensate the narcissistic identity suffering by “lone wolf” terrorists.

Spectrality as Decolonial Narrative Device for Colonial Experience in António Lobo Antunes’s O Esplendor de Portugal

This chapter explores how O Esplendor de Portugal by António Lobo Antunes deploys spectrality as a consistent and developed narrative device – an aesthetic mode of narrating colonial experience and subjectivities ensnared within imperial discourses. The novel’s narration is, for instance, constantly interrupted by voices from the past that participated in the colonist experience, incessantly interrupting the process of writing and the production of meaning. O Esplendor de Portugal demands that we engage with spectrality at both the level of writing and historicization – producing meaning in relation to particular events, as well as at the level of identity-formation. In this regard, the novel offers profound reflections as to the externality by which identity and subjectivity is formed within Empire. This leads the chapter toward a theoretical exploration of the relationship between specters and the Freudian/Lacanian specular image or ideal ego through which an individual becomes a subject within ideology. From here, the novel also guides this chapter toward yet another rethinking of Empire’s different layers of meaning and power.

CLINICAL FIGURES OF UGLINESS UP AGAINST METAPSYCHOLOGY

In this article we discuss the metapsychological aspect of the psychoanalytic research on the clinical figures of ugliness. If the problem of ugliness is often associated with metaphysics or social norms, we wish to emphasise that the feeling of being ugly affects any psychic functioning. The discrimination encountered by the ugly in any social unrest, is unconsciously linked to anxiety representations, which disturb ego familiarity, by revealing the strangewithin us. The aesthetic ambivalence that every subject feels towards himself, accompanied by the tension between the ego ideal and the ideal ego, shows the metapsychological character of such a problem.