Drawing Lines : from Kernberg and Haraway to Lacan and Beyond

Authors

  • Juliet Flower MacCannell University of California at Irvine, Emeritus, Comparative Literature

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5399/uo/konturen.3.1.1381

Abstract

This paper reviews the key concepts underlying the diagnosis of “borderline personality disorder” as exemplified in the work of Otto Kernberg. It looks both to history and philosophy (Rousseau), to social thought (Erving Goffman) and to psychoanalysis (Deutsch, Freud, Lacan) to show the limitations and problems with the diagnosis. It also looks at later cultural developments attacking the idea of limits and ‘borders’ (e.g, Haraway refusal of metaphoric distinctions among human-animal-machine) as having their own vexed psychoanalytic profile. The paper concludes with strong speculation about the reasons humans, and humans alone, draw lines.

Author Biography

Juliet Flower MacCannell, University of California at Irvine, Emeritus, Comparative Literature

Juliet Flower MacCannell writes on literature, art, philosophy and psychoanalysis, and is author of some 90 articles and several books:  The Hysteric’s Guide To The Future Female Subject (2000), The Regime Of The Brother (1991), Figuring Lacan: Criticism & The Cultural Unconscious (1986), and co-author of The Time of the Sign with Dean MacCannell (1982) .  She edited The ‘Other’ Perspective in Gender and Culture (1990); co-edited Thinking Bodies (1994), Feminism and Psychoanalysis: a Critical Dictionary (1992), and The American Journal of Semiotics (1983-1994).  She is principal translator of Hélène Cixous’ The Terrible but Unfinished Story of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia (1993).  She has lectured in the USA, Mexico, the UK, The Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Greece, Colombia, and Japan, on topics ranging from psychoanalysis to war to capitalism, architecture, cities and suburbs, film, Badiou, Rousseau, Sophie Calle.  Her articles have been translated into French, Slovenian and Spanish. She is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and English at UC Irvine, and is Honorary Fellow of the School of Advanced Study—Institute for Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London. She is co-chair of the California Psychoanalytic Circle and editor of (a): the journal of culture and the unconscious.  She has received numerous honors and visiting professorships, and she is co-creator of 15 art exhibits with Dean MacCannell and others.
Contour Map, Mt. Etna

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Published

2010-12-28

How to Cite

MacCannell, J. F. (2010). Drawing Lines : from Kernberg and Haraway to Lacan and Beyond. Konturen, 3(1), 63–86. https://doi.org/10.5399/uo/konturen.3.1.1381

Issue

Vol. 3 (2010): Borderlines in Psychoanalysis

Section

Articles