The Hysteric's Guide to the Future Female Subject by Juliet Flower MacCannell (review)

Juliet Flower MacCannell. The Hysteric's Guide to the Future Female Subject. Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 2000. 328p. Carolyn Tilghman Bitzenhofer University of Notre Dame Entering through Sade's perverse boudoir in PhiUsophy in the Bedroom, exiting through Lacan's "talk" ofcourtly love in Seminar VII, with an epilogue that circles the reader back and out via Marguerite Duras' perverse bedroom in Destroy, She Said, Juliet Flower MacCannell's The Hysteric's Guide to the Future FemaU Subject is a rich, sometimes bewildering, invariably thought-provoking primer for feminism in quest ofa future female subject. The inquiries into perversity, the psychoanalytic concepts, and the examples provided by MacCannell are meant to buttress her call for a revised model ofpsychoanalysis. To date, MacCannell argues, rhe methods available for carving out the girl's sexual identification and her relation to societyhave been sadism and psychoanalysis. But these, shesays, are flawed, partial, even harmful, means. They leave the girl and the woman she becomes without an ethical relation to society. This given, MacCannell sets herself the daunting tasks of, first, determining rhe consequences to women of"the knowledge " that sadism and Freudian psychoanalysis have "put into theworld" (xv) and, then, ofexplaining how psychoanalysis can facilitate a future female subject and a feminine ethic that places women in a new relation with sexuality, speech, and society. The Hysterics Guide to the Future FemaU Subject is theoretically sophisticated. MacCannell assumes her readers' familiaritywith Freudian, Lacanian, and objectrelations schools ofpsychoanalysis and with sadism. In thatshe addresses the need for a model offeminine desire and then initiates dialogue about howsuch a model might be constructed, MacCannell's book will interest feminists and psychoanalysts who take traditional psychoanalysis to task for its failure to think through a female subject adequately. Likewise, it will appeal to feminists who regard sexual difference as fundamental to the creation ofa language that speaks women's desire . In addition, MacCannell's book is intended for readers interested in how psychoanalytic theory usefully informs cultural studies. Sensitive to the criticism that psychoanalysis fails as cultural critique, MacCannell sets out, in very convincing fashion, to demonstrate that this is just not so. From the hysterical girl's encounters with the obscenity that falls "into her lap" every day in media culture, MacCannell moves her analysis back and forth in time and across several major social contexts. While doing so, she capably demonstrates the relevance of psychoanalytic theory in describing and critiquing the formation ofseveral major FALL 2000 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW + 135 social movements. In chapters four and five, her investigations ofthe perverse logic structuring racist and fascist cultures are especially provocative in this regard. The book is divided into two parts that explore "the darker side" ofour cultural ethic (chapters 1-6) and a "brighter view ofthe same" (chapter 8-1 0). Its ten chapters are further divided into sections. In these, MacCannell presents a potpourri ofexamples from literature, film, art, philosophy, and political theory. As indicated, MacCannell's project is ambitious. And the contract she makes with readers is demanding. As such, the division ofher book into parts and ofchapters into shorter sections facilitates an easier ingestion ofthe numerous examples and the sometimes difficult concepts that she sets before her readers. Part one of her book analyzes a variety of"isms" which are products ofthe obscene ethic underlying contemporary culture. Although sundry and sweeping, the examples selected are consistently compelling and MacCannell's analysis is discerning. Among other things, she follows the perversity in Hitchcock's Shadow ofa Doubtas the hysteric (Charlie) invites the pervert (her uncle, Charlie) into her home. She delineates the "seamy underside" ofcolonialism in her reading ofKleist's Betrothalin Santo Domingo. She describes the racism underlying Adornos denunciation ofjazz in Aesthetics and Politics. She explores the invocatory power of fascism through Arendts analysis ofAdolph Eichmann's perverse identification with "the principle behind the law" in Eichmann inJerusalem. Finally, turning to Melanie Klein, she explains how, in 1950s "momism," the nuclear family was made to serve as an ideological shelter from the perceived threat ofnuclear annihilation. As these examples reveal, a lot is going on here. Although the girl seems left behind in MacCannell's discussion ofcolonialism, racism, and fascism, a...