Philosophical Seminar: Dr Rob Weatherill 'On the Anti-Oedipus Complex and the End of the Father'

Tuesday, November 21, 2017 - 12:00 to 13:00
SE129, School of Education

Abstract:

Moving from the contemporary ‘Joy of Sex’ post Freud to the unconscious and unacknowledged fear of Eroticism (Bataille, Baudrillard) and the death drive, I ask why has the Oedipus Complex (central for Freudian psychoanalysis and mental health) been replaced by the Anti-Oedipus Complex, which I describe as a rebellion, a cultural revolution against the Father and tradition? The Father has gone and he’s not coming back!  Is this a real liberation? Will he indeed return in some form? The talk explores these questions in some detail. 

Speaker:

Rob Weatherill is a practising and supervisory analyst in private practice in Dublin. He has been a lecturer on psychoanalysis and taught psychoanalytic theory and practice in University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin and the Milton Institute of Philosophy and Theology. He has written several books on psychoanalysis and culture and over thirty papers and articles in journals and other media, in Ireland and abroad. His latest book is, The Anti-Oedipus Complex. Lacan, Critical Theory and Postmodernism. Routledge 2017. The Irish Times review is here