Phallacious theories of the subject (Review Article)

An extended review essay assesses current attempts to unify Freudian, Marxist, & semiotic theories of subjectivity. The subject - sexual for Freud, revolutionary for Marx - has undergone severe questioning under the pressure of semiotics, in which the traditional "subject" tends to disappear, to become an empty crossroads "where," as C. Levi-Strauss wrote, "something happens." The most comprehensive model for retaining the subject in both its sexual & semiotic roles derives from the work of J. Lacan, who read Freud in light of Saussure. His model is, however, limited in its political applicability. His structuralist followers have sought to draw out the implied political subject of Lacan's work; this particular movement is detailed comprehensively in R. Coward's & J. Ellis's Language and Materialism: Developments in Semiology and the Theory of the Subject (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977). This book, although useful, fails to measure the import of the poststructural critique of the Lacanian subject, a critique led by the philosopher J. Derrida & developed by psychoanalytic critics, eg, J. Laplanche. Modified AA