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"Does critical theory still need psychoanalysis? In Critique on the Couch, Amy Allen offers a cogent and convincing defense of its ongoing relevance. Countering the overly rationalist and progressivist interpretations of psychoanalysis put forward by contemporary critical theorists such as Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth, Allen argues that the work of Melanie Klein offers an underutilized resource. She draws on Freud, Klein, and Lacan to develop a more realistic strand of psychoanalytic thinking that centers on notions of loss, negativity, ambivalence, and mourning. Far from leading to despair, such an understanding of human subjectivity functions as a foundation of creativity, productive self-transformation, and progressive social change. At a time when critical theorists are increasingly returning to psychoanalytic thought to diagnose the dysfunctions of our politics, this book opens up new ways of understanding the political implications of psychoanalysis while preserving the progressive, emancipatory aims of critique"--

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 Feminist Conceptions of Power: A Critical Assessment -- Power as Resource -- Power as Domination -- Power as Empowerment -- Conclusion -- 2 The Genealogy of Power: Michel Foucault -- Foucault's Conception of Power -- A Theory for Women? -- A Theory for Feminists -- Limits to the Collaboration: Resistance, Agency, and Solidarity, -- Conclusion -- 3 Power Trouble: Judith Butler's Feminist Genealogy of Power -- Performativity: Take One -- Performativity: Take Two -- Limitations to Performativity -- Conclusion -- 4 The Power of Solidarity: Hannah Arendt -- Foucault, Butler, and Arendt: An Unlikely Alliance -- Arendt's Conception of Power -- Beyond Sisterhood: Rethinking Solidarity -- A Limitation to Arendt's Conception of Power -- 5 A Feminist Conception of Power -- Defining Power -- Methodological Considerations -- Bibliography -- Index

pt. I. Arendt's reconceptualization of the political -- part II. Arendt's philosophical lineage -- part III. Difference, identity and selfhood in Arendt -- part IV. Theorizing dark times : totalitarianism, Eichmann and evil -- part V. Critical extensions/appropriations : Arendt on race, gender and sexuality.

Introduction : the politics of our selvesFoucault, subjectivity, and the Enlightenment : a critical reappraisal -- The impurity of practical reason : power and autonomy in Foucault -- Dependency, subordination, and recognition : Butler on subjection -- Empowering the lifeworld? autonomy and power in Habermas -- Contextualizing critical theory -- Engendering critical theory.

Abstract
Although Rosa Luxemburg is currently enjoying a well-deserved renaissance, much of the current discussion of her work fails to contend with her commitment to a rather orthodox reading of the Marxist theory of history. I argue that all of the features that make Luxemburg's work so attractive to contemporary scholars—her revolutionary radicalism, her accounts of spontaneity and democracy, and her critique of imperialism—are undergirded by her commitment to that theory, along with its commitments to unilinearity, necessity, and progress. This theory provides the systematic backbone for Luxemburg's thought. In the wake of postcolonial, Indigenous, Black, and feminist critiques of the Marxist theory of history, this feature of Luxemburg's work considerably complicates her legacy for contemporary critical theory.