Frosh, Stephen (2004) The voice of the dead: commentary on Cornelia St. John's paper. Studies in Gender and Sexuality 5 (4), pp. 443-457. ISSN 1524-0657.
Abstract
This commentary celebrates the evocativeness and acuity of Cornelia St. John's case study, while offering a slightly elaborated rereading. This rereading has a few major elements. First, the fragmentation of language enacted in the patient's stutter does indeed function as a “rupture” in the fabric of consciousness, but this is not as categorically gendered as St. John seems to suggest. Second the case study is framed by a melancholia that is both classical and contemporary in reflecting a state of “being in love with loss” that seems to be sweeping the culture. Third, in this particular case the melancholy is deeply abjected, having its origins in the overwhelming power of the mother's depression, a state that envelops the patient and also touches off fantasies of melancholic dissolution in his analyst. Finally, the relatively muted consideration of the patient's cultural “foreignness” is discussed.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Sarah Hall |
| Date Deposited: | 18 Jul 2017 15:53 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 17:34 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/19205 |
Statistics
Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.
Archive Staff Only (login required)
