Everyday Extraordinary: Encountering Fetishism with Marx, Freud and Lacan
Christopher M. Gemerchak (Editor), Paul Moyaert (Editor),
The concept of fetishism has long been a window through which philosophers, psychoanalysts and cultural anthropologists have looked in order to critically examine the nature of beliefs, sexual interests and material values, and it remains today a vital interpretive paradigm. The enduring interest in fetishism gives testimony to the fact that its status and significance have yet to be fully resolved. In the attempt to further clarify this ambiguous and often mystifying phenomenon, the contributors to Everyday Extraordinary: Encountering Fetishism with Marx, Freud and Lacan have taken a fresh look at the fundamental dynamic of fetishism through the lenses of its most influential interpreters-not only Marx, Freud and Lacan, but also Derrida, Mannoni and Pietz.
In this collection of essays, the philosophical approach joins forces with the psychoanalytic, and the psychoanalytic with the aesthetic and mythological, often with striking results. Emerging from the essays contained in this volume is a notion of fetishism as a response to a crisis of meaning: personal, social or religious. The fetish mediates the crisis that arises when a system of meaning and identity is confronted with something that threatens it with dissolution, whether this threat arises from an excessive and traumatic figure of alterity, or from the loss of the ground on which ones certainty had been staked. And the stakes of this confrontation are indeed high, as the fetish is here seen as an object having a profound influence on the life of desire, now leading to a symbolic blossoming of the mundane, now into perverse repetition and the refusal of change.
Preface
Fetishism, Desire and Finitude: The Artful Dodge
Christopher Gemerchak
Fetishism and the Vicissitudes of the Object in Sublimation According to Freud and Lacan
Paul Moyaert
Vertigo of Substitutes: Fetish and Trophy
Jean-Joseph Goux
Genital COnstructions: A Critique of Freud’s “Fetishism”
Andreas De Block
What’s so Funny about Fetishism?
Mignon Nixon
Fetishes and Ghosts: Marx and Derrida
Egidius Berns
Bibliography
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Everyday Extraordinary: Encountering Fetishism with Marx, Freud and Lacan" about?
The concept of fetishism has long been a window through which philosophers, psychoanalysts and cultural anthropologists have looked in order to critically examine the nature of beliefs, sexual interests and material values, and it remains today a vital interpretive paradigm. The enduring interest in fetishism gives testimony to the fact that its status and significance have yet to be fully resolved. In the attempt to further clarify this ambiguous and often mystifying phenomenon, the contributors to Everyday Extraordinary: Encountering Fetishism with Marx, Freud and Lacan have taken a fresh look at the fundamental dynamic of fetishism through the lenses of its most influential interpreters-not only Marx, Freud and Lacan, but also Derrida, Mannoni and Pietz.
In this collection of essays, the philosophical approach joins forces with the psychoanalytic, and the psychoanalytic with the aesthetic and mythological, often with striking results. Emerging from the essays contained in this volume is a notion of fetishism as a response to a crisis of meaning: personal, social or religious. The fetish mediates the crisis that arises when a system of meaning and identity is confronted with something that threatens it with dissolution, whether this threat arises from an excessive and traumatic figure of alterity, or from the loss of the ground on which ones certainty had been staked. And the stakes of this confrontation are indeed high, as the fetish is here seen as an object having a profound influence on the life of desire, now leading to a symbolic blossoming of the mundane, now into perverse repetition and the refusal of change.
Who edited "Everyday Extraordinary: Encountering Fetishism with Marx, Freud and Lacan"?
"Everyday Extraordinary: Encountering Fetishism with Marx, Freud and Lacan" was edited by Christopher M. Gemerchak and Paul Moyaert.
Paul Moyaert (Hoger Instituut van Wijsbegeerte, KU Leuven)
Is "Everyday Extraordinary: Encountering Fetishism with Marx, Freud and Lacan" part of a series?
Yes, "Everyday Extraordinary: Encountering Fetishism with Marx, Freud and Lacan" is part of the "Figures of the Unconscious" series. It's book 4 in the series.
In collaboration with the International Society for Psychoanalysis and Philosophy (SIPP-ISPP).

The peer-reviewed book series Figures of the Unconscious was founded in 2001 and provides a platform for exchange at the intersection of philosophy and psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis occupies a crucial position within contemporary philosophical thinking and many analysts are influenced by philosophical approaches.
Both philosophy and psychoanalysis are concerned with the nature of the subject, questions of knowledge and epistemology, sexuality, life and death, ethical issues, alterity, and the subject’s manifold relationships to the other - to other human and non-human beings and to its environment.
We welcome manuscripts in the areas and at the intersections of
- the history of psychoanalysis and Freudian thought
- the exploration of psychoanalytic concepts and the development of theories
- the research and development of the psychoanalytic movement
- psychoanalytic and philosophical concepts and ideas
- psychoanalysis, gender and queer studies
- interdisciplinary approaches that combine psychoanalysis with other scientific disciplines
- current developments in psychoanalytic approaches
- ethical approaches in psychoanalysis
- epistemological debates
Editors-in-Chief
Beatriz Santos (Université de Paris)
Herman Westerink (Radboud University)
Esther Hutfless (Sigmund Freud University Linz)
Editorial board
Jeff Bloechl (Boston College)
Advisory Board
Jozef Corveleyn (KU Leuven)
Monique David-Ménard (Université de Paris)
Rodrigo De La Fabián (Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile)
Jens De Vleminck (Leuven)
Eran Dorfman (University of Tel Aviv)
Laurie Laufer (Université de Paris)
Elissa Marder (Emory University, Atlanta)
Claire Nioche (Université Paris XIII)
Vladimir Safatle (Universidade de São Paulo)
Charles Shepherdson (State University of New York at Albany)
Guillaume Silbertin Blanc (Université Paris 8)
Raluca Soreanu (University of Essex)
Celine Surprenant (Paris)
Antônio Teixeira (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais)
Johan Van Der Walt (University of Luxemburg)
Wilfried Ver Eecke (Georgetown University)
Proposals
The board accepts manuscripts for review from both members and non-members of the SIPP-ISPP. These can be either monographs or edited volumes, provided they align with the aims and scope of the series.
Proposals and enquiries can be sent to the series editors-in-chief.
Please make use of the submission form to present your manuscript or proposal to our board.
Authors interested in Open Access can consult the available funding options.
Links & Resources
What is the Table of Contents for "Everyday Extraordinary: Encountering Fetishism with Marx, Freud and Lacan"?
Preface
Fetishism, Desire and Finitude: The Artful Dodge
Christopher Gemerchak
Fetishism and the Vicissitudes of the Object in Sublimation According to Freud and Lacan
Paul Moyaert
Vertigo of Substitutes: Fetish and Trophy
Jean-Joseph Goux
Genital COnstructions: A Critique of Freud's "Fetishism"
Andreas De Block
What's so Funny about Fetishism?
Mignon Nixon
Fetishes and Ghosts: Marx and Derrida
Egidius Berns
Bibliography
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