Suchergebnisse

What is it in nationalism that lends itself to such continuous permutations and repetitions, to its perpetuum mobile? Why are 'we' continuously investing in it despite its failures and indeed its darker side of exclusions, xenophobia and even genocide? This chapter reflects on the power and form of nationalism in (late) modernity by offering a Lacanian-psychoanalytical reading of nationalism's recurrences and its affective appeal. Specifically, this chapter develops three mutually enabling machineries that drive and animate projects of nationalism. These are (1) the ontological fissure at the heart of the nation/state and indeed the national subject/object (the split subject), (2) the fantasmatic nature of national narratives of utopian closure and wholeness, and (3) the jouissance (enjoyment) in nationalism, namely the temporal nature of affective belonging and the sense that this mode of enjoyment was lost and/or stolen by an Other.

How could we understand the emotive power of national-populist discourses, indeed the calls to 'make our country great again'? This paper directly tackles the recent Brexit discourse, within the broader context of rising national-populist sentiments. I offer a novel way of reading national-populism and the politics of subjectivity as I put forth a Lacanian-psychoanalytical framework, namely the void at the heart of national-populism narratives and thus their ability to produce and hail national-populist subjectivities, particularly through 'fantasy', 'jouissance' and the promise to recapture loss. I suggest that national-populism discourses appeal emotively and thus interpellate, at least partially, their subjects by offering unity and a 'fullness to come', the promise of filling the void, the promise of full jouissance. Since such national closure and unity are unattainable national-populism discourses must appeal to lost golden eras of greatness and by rendering the Other the cause of their failure.

The section 'gay rights in Israel', part of the gaytlvguide.com website promoting gay life and culture in Israel, narrates Israel as '… one of the world's most progressive countries in terms of equality for sexual minorities… by far the most tolerant Middle Eastern country towards homosexuals'. The ways in which Israel has been positioning its spatio-cultural exceptionality and the rise in LGBT discourses of national inclusion in Israel and beyond has already been identified by Jasbir Puar as 'homonationalism'. This article, however, asks how. Namely, how do homonational discourses come to produce and hail queer populations as national loyal subjects? I suggest that, to better understand the hailing power of homonational discourses in Israel and beyond, theories of national-civilisational belonging, affect and interpellation must be reassessed and the insecurity at the heart of the national-civilisational edifice interrogated. To do so, the article draws on Lacanian psychoanalytical tools as I look into the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF's) approach towards LGBT recruits as well as the rise in LGBT campaigning on the political right.

Taking cue from Foucault's Society Must be Defended and drawing on the Lacanian concept of fantasy this paper puts forwards an analytic of in/security by focusing on the fantasy of congruency of state, nation and society. I argue that this ideal of congruency is fantasmatic, as it offers an impossible-possibility of congruency, fullness and security that can never be attained and that thus continuously strives to materialise itself whilst including its own failure, the obstacle. Insecurity is thus directly linked to the fantasy of congruency since every fantasmatic narrative about the promised fullness of the body national/social must entail an Other, standing in our way to achieve our promised congruency. To illustrate this analytic of in/security I interrogate two key discursive practices through which state, nation and society are rendered congruent and how this congruency is legitimated via, indeed entails, a myriad of in/security strategies.

This paper offers an alternative reading of the Abbé Sieyès and the modern 'nation-state' problématique. I argue that the subject/object that is constituted in the early days of modernity is the incomplete society: an impossible-possibility ideal of congruency of population, authority and space. I suggest reading this ideal of congruency as a fantasy in that it offers a certain 'fullness to come', the promise of jouissance that can never be attained and is thus constantly re-envisioned and re-invoked. Drawing on discourse-analytical and psychoanalytical tools I explain the logic of fantasy before analysing Sieyès' What is the Third Estate?, as I show how he critiques and fragments the old model of the state and how his reading of the nation is fantasmatic, a continuous project towards impossible congruency.