Papers by Yen-Ying Lai 賴彥穎
International Journal of Žižek Studies, 2018
This paper looks at the tragedy of Qiao Feng in Jin Yong’s The Demi-Gods and the Semi-Devils . Wh... more This paper looks at the tragedy of Qiao Feng in Jin Yong’s The Demi-Gods and the Semi-Devils . While it is common practice for Žižekean scholars to examine genre writing and popular culture with Lacanian theory, the martial arts genre has received little attention. In Demi-Gods , Qiao Feng experiences an ‘identity crisis’ at the peak of his career: rumour has it that though he was raised and trained in China, he was born a Khitan. Qiao Feng at first believes it is a just conspiracy, and henceforth is blind-sided by the imaginary relation between his ego and small others. He mis-recognises others’ scheming as ‘the Other of the Other,’ while his supposedly deceased Khitan father occupies the corner of the Other in the schema L to orchestra the manipulation game. However, what Qiao Feng is really under prey is the desire of the father, and of the two fatherlands, one Han-Chinese, one Khitan: his tragedy lies in the split of the national Other, in the impossibility of the ethical impera...
Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 2019
Based on his reading of Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, Deleuze claims that one aspect of masochis... more Based on his reading of Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, Deleuze claims that one aspect of masochism is the repudiation of the father. Following this, many critics argue for a subversive nature in perversion, and misperceive the dynamics of sadism and masochism. A Lacanian reading of an experientially grounded representation of BDSM, as conveyed in the stories of Califia, allows us to dispel the Deleuzean misunderstanding of perversion and bypass a two-dimensional portrayal of the power relation between sadists and masochists. As explicated through Lacan and Califia, an understanding of BDSM practice also helps to reveal the underlying erotic structure of forms of contemporary politics such as fundamentalism and liberalism. To understand BDSM in Califia’s story, the Lacanian imaginary/real/symbolic triad is employed, serving first as a framework to dispel the Deleuzean miscomprehension of masochism, and then as a way to fully grasp Califia’s perverted world.
Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 2019
Full text: https://rdcu.be/bxenK
Based on his reading of Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, Deleuze ... more Full text: https://rdcu.be/bxenK
Based on his reading of Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, Deleuze claims that one aspect of masochism is the repudiation of the father. Following this, many critics argue for a subversive nature in perversion, and misperceive the dynamics of sadism and masochism. A Lacanian reading of an experientially grounded representation of BDSM, as conveyed in the stories of Califia, allows us to dispel the Deleuzean misunderstanding of perversion and bypass a two-dimensional portrayal of the power relation between sadists and masochists. As explicated through Lacan and Califia, an understanding of BDSM practice also helps to reveal the underlying erotic structure of forms of contemporary politics such as fundamentalism and liberalism. To understand BDSM in Califia’s story, the Lacanian imaginary/real/symbolic triad is employed, serving first as a framework to dispel the Deleuzean miscomprehension of masochism, and then as a way to fully grasp Califia’s perverted world.
This paper looks at the tragedy of Qiao Feng in Jin Yong’s The Demi-Gods and the Semi-Devils. Whi... more This paper looks at the tragedy of Qiao Feng in Jin Yong’s The Demi-Gods and the Semi-Devils. While it is common practice for Žižekean scholars to examine genre writing and popular culture with Lacanian theory, the martial arts genre has received little attention. In Demi-Gods, Qiao Feng experiences an ‘identity crisis’ at the peak of his career: rumour has it that though he was raised and trained in China, he was born a Khitan. Qiao Feng at first believes it is a just conspiracy, and henceforth is blind-sided by the imaginary relation between his ego and small others. He mis-recognises others’ scheming as ‘the Other of the Other,’ while his supposedly deceased Khitan father occupies the corner of the Other in the schema L to orchestra the manipulation game. However, what Qiao Feng is really under prey is the desire of the father, and of the two fatherlands, one Han-Chinese, one Khitan: his tragedy lies in the split of the national Other, in the impossibility of the ethical imperative Your duty is to be loyal to your country. And yet, it is exactly because of the emptiness in the ethical call that Qiao Feng can start to act as a subject, a subject that is by definition already always split. This paper thus interprets the actions of Jin Yong’s hero according to Lacan’s schema L, and also provides variations of the schema based on the twists and turns of this martial arts tragedy.
Link to journal: http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/1020
Lai, Y (2007). Kant and Califia. The Symptom, 8.
Pat(trick) Califia won her fame in the late 80s... more Lai, Y (2007). Kant and Califia. The Symptom, 8.
Pat(trick) Califia won her fame in the late 80s by advocating for lesbian S/M culture. Her short pieces of erotica that once spiced up the already heated debates in the "sex war" and continue to excite are now collected in Macho Sluts. [1] The short-story form is indeed most suited to an insatiable More!More! demand for more skins to whip on, more pains to take pleasure in. Furthermore, contrary to the attitude that "sadism demands a story" (title of Seaboyer) and that perversion must be a narrative of trauma, in story after story Califia writes about sadists and masochists who, as if born right into their sexual identities, simply enjoy their kinks right here and now, and neither parental problems nor a bad childhood can explain their fantasy away. This drive-like demand and politics is best represented in the third piece in Macho Sluts, "The Calyx of Isis".
Lai, Y (2005). Reading Pat Califia’s erotic short stories and Freud’s theory of sexuality. (Maste... more Lai, Y (2005). Reading Pat Califia’s erotic short stories and Freud’s theory of sexuality. (Master dissertation, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.)
With a minimalist touch, Lacan repeats Freud’s theoretical course of sexuality by drawing out the circuit of drive, in which Freud’s speculative rigour is accentuated by the objet petit a, an empty spot that kicks off the retroactive effects of the circumventing orbit, a sublime object that carries a surplus-value that is always in excess of the course. In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud’s three-step project manoeuvres just like the orbit of drive. He steps out of the so-called normal sexuality, into the perversions, and back, leaving behind unsolved “undecidables” such as love and hate ambivalence, such as his oscillations between moralistic and “immoralistic” concerns – the course of a theory of sexuality is shown to be an ideological manoeuvre. An imagination of a normal sexuality is a disavowal of the perverse kernel, it is a drama about and a, about a discourse that always has to make sense of its own internal antagonism. The formula of fantasy, $<>a, is the formula of this essay.
If fantasy is the best way to come to terms with the contradictions in any desiring movement, then it is in the perverse fantasies (a<>$) that we can gain quickest access to all the undecidable, yet empowering “a-effects” of Freud’s theory of sexuality, and in psychoanalytic theory of ideology overall. Pat(trick) Califia’s S/M stories tell about the barred subject and her jouissance of/for the Other, about the impossible equation of pain and pleasure, aggressivity and romance. Most importantly, her sado-masochistic games are a shameless repetition of power relations in our social reality. These confessions about the Lust for domination and submission hence short-circuit the big Other and its obscene underside on the same plane, portraying the fantasmatic structure of the ideological edifice with the dimension of the jouissance. This dimension is also that of the Freudian Triebe, best performed by the repetitive death drive. Califia’s erotica is able to lead us right into this abyss, face-to-face with das Ding. When taken there, along with Freud and Califia, one can begin the endless pursuit of ethics.
Conference Presentations by Yen-Ying Lai 賴彥穎
Research question: how to ensure implementation of writing assignment and quality of feedback whe... more Research question: how to ensure implementation of writing assignment and quality of feedback when the higher education segment in Australia will not increase budget on casual hire and tutoring
Lai, Y (2011, Dec). Qiao/Xiao Feng: Reading ethics in Jin Yong‘s martial arts fiction. Paper pres... more Lai, Y (2011, Dec). Qiao/Xiao Feng: Reading ethics in Jin Yong‘s martial arts fiction. Paper presented at the International Conference on Translation and Cross-Cultural Communication. University of Queensland, Brisbane.
Lai, Y (2010, July). Suspect, or Witness?. Paper presented at the 14th Annual Work-in-Progress Co... more Lai, Y (2010, July). Suspect, or Witness?. Paper presented at the 14th Annual Work-in-Progress Conference. School of English, Media Studies and Art History, University of Queensland, Brisbane. 30 Jul 2010.
Books by Yen-Ying Lai 賴彥穎
Lai, Y (2014). Four discourses. In B. Rex, The Žižek dictionary (pp. 97-102). London: Routledge.
Thesis Chapters by Yen-Ying Lai 賴彥穎
Jin Yong, the best-known novelist of the wuxia, or martial arts genre, asks different questions o... more Jin Yong, the best-known novelist of the wuxia, or martial arts genre, asks different questions of ethics about love, duty and honour in each of his novels. Lacan’s writing is also a journey of ethics, which is relentless in re-shaping the ground upon which any thinking, including its own, is defined. This thesis reads Jin Yong and Lacan together, to extend the Lacanian insight by bringing in materials that have remained foreign to psychoanalytic theory until now. In so doing, it reconfigures criticisms regarding romance, sexuality, and tragedy as a contribution to the field of Chinese literature.
The thesis starts with a brief history of Chinese literature, focusing on martial arts fiction. Lacan’s arguments on the master signifier provide insight into crucial themes of the genre, such as xia (chivalry, heroism), zhong (loyalty to the leadership), and yi (allegiance to equals). Each of the following three chapters introduces one key set of Lacanian terms, focused on a diagram: the four discourses, the schema L, and the diagram of sexuation. Each of these presents a different take on Jin Yong and the martial arts genre.
The second chapter looks at the circulation of Jin Yong’s novels. It focuses on “Jinology,” the Jin Yong scholarship that consists mainly of fan letters and fan writings, which I examine as a discourse in Lacan’s quite specific use of that term, as a social link that runs on its own excess and incompleteness. The tragedy of Qiao Feng in The Demi-Gods and Semi-Demons (Tianlong Babu) is unfolded in the third chapter, using an insight from Lacan’s schema L: Qiao Feng starts fully assuming his subjectivity only when he realizes that there is no Other of the Other, and that the Other does not guarantee justice. The fourth chapter looks at the impossibility of the sexual relationship, and the infinity of desire and drive, by reading the story of the most loved couple in Jin Yong’s novels, Yang Guo and Little Dragon Maiden (Xiaolongnü) from the novel The Giant Eagle and Its Companion (Shendiao Xialü).
The first two chapters pave the way for the next two chapters’ discussions on these characters, whose stories or tragedies present a rich source for an ethical investigation of the forced choice in the conclusion. Yang Guo faces the Duty or love! challenge, a double-bind always present in Jin Yong’s novels. Qiao Feng’s forced choice between two fatherlands, on the other hand, allows us to see the meaning of self-sacrifice, and the terror of freedom to choose. We find that one simply must act even when the sacrifice is for nothing and there is no assurance that the choice made will be the right choice. And when one does act, it will be an event of love, and a moment of ethics.
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Papers by Yen-Ying Lai 賴彥穎
Author: Holly M. Barker
Publisher: Cenage (2012)
https://www.cengage.com/c/bravo-for-the-marshallese-regaining-control-in-a-post-nuclear-post-colonial-world-2e-barker/9781111833848/
為馬紹爾喝采：在後核武、後殖民世界取回掌控權的島國
譯者：賴彥穎
Based on his reading of Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, Deleuze claims that one aspect of masochism is the repudiation of the father. Following this, many critics argue for a subversive nature in perversion, and misperceive the dynamics of sadism and masochism. A Lacanian reading of an experientially grounded representation of BDSM, as conveyed in the stories of Califia, allows us to dispel the Deleuzean misunderstanding of perversion and bypass a two-dimensional portrayal of the power relation between sadists and masochists. As explicated through Lacan and Califia, an understanding of BDSM practice also helps to reveal the underlying erotic structure of forms of contemporary politics such as fundamentalism and liberalism. To understand BDSM in Califia’s story, the Lacanian imaginary/real/symbolic triad is employed, serving first as a framework to dispel the Deleuzean miscomprehension of masochism, and then as a way to fully grasp Califia’s perverted world.
Link to journal: http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/1020
Pat(trick) Califia won her fame in the late 80s by advocating for lesbian S/M culture. Her short pieces of erotica that once spiced up the already heated debates in the "sex war" and continue to excite are now collected in Macho Sluts. [1] The short-story form is indeed most suited to an insatiable More!More! demand for more skins to whip on, more pains to take pleasure in. Furthermore, contrary to the attitude that "sadism demands a story" (title of Seaboyer) and that perversion must be a narrative of trauma, in story after story Califia writes about sadists and masochists who, as if born right into their sexual identities, simply enjoy their kinks right here and now, and neither parental problems nor a bad childhood can explain their fantasy away. This drive-like demand and politics is best represented in the third piece in Macho Sluts, "The Calyx of Isis".
With a minimalist touch, Lacan repeats Freud’s theoretical course of sexuality by drawing out the circuit of drive, in which Freud’s speculative rigour is accentuated by the objet petit a, an empty spot that kicks off the retroactive effects of the circumventing orbit, a sublime object that carries a surplus-value that is always in excess of the course. In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud’s three-step project manoeuvres just like the orbit of drive. He steps out of the so-called normal sexuality, into the perversions, and back, leaving behind unsolved “undecidables” such as love and hate ambivalence, such as his oscillations between moralistic and “immoralistic” concerns – the course of a theory of sexuality is shown to be an ideological manoeuvre. An imagination of a normal sexuality is a disavowal of the perverse kernel, it is a drama about and a, about a discourse that always has to make sense of its own internal antagonism. The formula of fantasy, $<>a, is the formula of this essay.
If fantasy is the best way to come to terms with the contradictions in any desiring movement, then it is in the perverse fantasies (a<>$) that we can gain quickest access to all the undecidable, yet empowering “a-effects” of Freud’s theory of sexuality, and in psychoanalytic theory of ideology overall. Pat(trick) Califia’s S/M stories tell about the barred subject and her jouissance of/for the Other, about the impossible equation of pain and pleasure, aggressivity and romance. Most importantly, her sado-masochistic games are a shameless repetition of power relations in our social reality. These confessions about the Lust for domination and submission hence short-circuit the big Other and its obscene underside on the same plane, portraying the fantasmatic structure of the ideological edifice with the dimension of the jouissance. This dimension is also that of the Freudian Triebe, best performed by the repetitive death drive. Califia’s erotica is able to lead us right into this abyss, face-to-face with das Ding. When taken there, along with Freud and Califia, one can begin the endless pursuit of ethics.
Conference Presentations by Yen-Ying Lai 賴彥穎
Books by Yen-Ying Lai 賴彥穎
Thesis Chapters by Yen-Ying Lai 賴彥穎
The thesis starts with a brief history of Chinese literature, focusing on martial arts fiction. Lacan’s arguments on the master signifier provide insight into crucial themes of the genre, such as xia (chivalry, heroism), zhong (loyalty to the leadership), and yi (allegiance to equals). Each of the following three chapters introduces one key set of Lacanian terms, focused on a diagram: the four discourses, the schema L, and the diagram of sexuation. Each of these presents a different take on Jin Yong and the martial arts genre.
The second chapter looks at the circulation of Jin Yong’s novels. It focuses on “Jinology,” the Jin Yong scholarship that consists mainly of fan letters and fan writings, which I examine as a discourse in Lacan’s quite specific use of that term, as a social link that runs on its own excess and incompleteness. The tragedy of Qiao Feng in The Demi-Gods and Semi-Demons (Tianlong Babu) is unfolded in the third chapter, using an insight from Lacan’s schema L: Qiao Feng starts fully assuming his subjectivity only when he realizes that there is no Other of the Other, and that the Other does not guarantee justice. The fourth chapter looks at the impossibility of the sexual relationship, and the infinity of desire and drive, by reading the story of the most loved couple in Jin Yong’s novels, Yang Guo and Little Dragon Maiden (Xiaolongnü) from the novel The Giant Eagle and Its Companion (Shendiao Xialü).
The first two chapters pave the way for the next two chapters’ discussions on these characters, whose stories or tragedies present a rich source for an ethical investigation of the forced choice in the conclusion. Yang Guo faces the Duty or love! challenge, a double-bind always present in Jin Yong’s novels. Qiao Feng’s forced choice between two fatherlands, on the other hand, allows us to see the meaning of self-sacrifice, and the terror of freedom to choose. We find that one simply must act even when the sacrifice is for nothing and there is no assurance that the choice made will be the right choice. And when one does act, it will be an event of love, and a moment of ethics.
Author: Holly M. Barker
Publisher: Cenage (2012)
https://www.cengage.com/c/bravo-for-the-marshallese-regaining-control-in-a-post-nuclear-post-colonial-world-2e-barker/9781111833848/
為馬紹爾喝采：在後核武、後殖民世界取回掌控權的島國
譯者：賴彥穎
Based on his reading of Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, Deleuze claims that one aspect of masochism is the repudiation of the father. Following this, many critics argue for a subversive nature in perversion, and misperceive the dynamics of sadism and masochism. A Lacanian reading of an experientially grounded representation of BDSM, as conveyed in the stories of Califia, allows us to dispel the Deleuzean misunderstanding of perversion and bypass a two-dimensional portrayal of the power relation between sadists and masochists. As explicated through Lacan and Califia, an understanding of BDSM practice also helps to reveal the underlying erotic structure of forms of contemporary politics such as fundamentalism and liberalism. To understand BDSM in Califia’s story, the Lacanian imaginary/real/symbolic triad is employed, serving first as a framework to dispel the Deleuzean miscomprehension of masochism, and then as a way to fully grasp Califia’s perverted world.
Link to journal: http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/1020
Pat(trick) Califia won her fame in the late 80s by advocating for lesbian S/M culture. Her short pieces of erotica that once spiced up the already heated debates in the "sex war" and continue to excite are now collected in Macho Sluts. [1] The short-story form is indeed most suited to an insatiable More!More! demand for more skins to whip on, more pains to take pleasure in. Furthermore, contrary to the attitude that "sadism demands a story" (title of Seaboyer) and that perversion must be a narrative of trauma, in story after story Califia writes about sadists and masochists who, as if born right into their sexual identities, simply enjoy their kinks right here and now, and neither parental problems nor a bad childhood can explain their fantasy away. This drive-like demand and politics is best represented in the third piece in Macho Sluts, "The Calyx of Isis".
With a minimalist touch, Lacan repeats Freud’s theoretical course of sexuality by drawing out the circuit of drive, in which Freud’s speculative rigour is accentuated by the objet petit a, an empty spot that kicks off the retroactive effects of the circumventing orbit, a sublime object that carries a surplus-value that is always in excess of the course. In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud’s three-step project manoeuvres just like the orbit of drive. He steps out of the so-called normal sexuality, into the perversions, and back, leaving behind unsolved “undecidables” such as love and hate ambivalence, such as his oscillations between moralistic and “immoralistic” concerns – the course of a theory of sexuality is shown to be an ideological manoeuvre. An imagination of a normal sexuality is a disavowal of the perverse kernel, it is a drama about and a, about a discourse that always has to make sense of its own internal antagonism. The formula of fantasy, $<>a, is the formula of this essay.
If fantasy is the best way to come to terms with the contradictions in any desiring movement, then it is in the perverse fantasies (a<>$) that we can gain quickest access to all the undecidable, yet empowering “a-effects” of Freud’s theory of sexuality, and in psychoanalytic theory of ideology overall. Pat(trick) Califia’s S/M stories tell about the barred subject and her jouissance of/for the Other, about the impossible equation of pain and pleasure, aggressivity and romance. Most importantly, her sado-masochistic games are a shameless repetition of power relations in our social reality. These confessions about the Lust for domination and submission hence short-circuit the big Other and its obscene underside on the same plane, portraying the fantasmatic structure of the ideological edifice with the dimension of the jouissance. This dimension is also that of the Freudian Triebe, best performed by the repetitive death drive. Califia’s erotica is able to lead us right into this abyss, face-to-face with das Ding. When taken there, along with Freud and Califia, one can begin the endless pursuit of ethics.
The thesis starts with a brief history of Chinese literature, focusing on martial arts fiction. Lacan’s arguments on the master signifier provide insight into crucial themes of the genre, such as xia (chivalry, heroism), zhong (loyalty to the leadership), and yi (allegiance to equals). Each of the following three chapters introduces one key set of Lacanian terms, focused on a diagram: the four discourses, the schema L, and the diagram of sexuation. Each of these presents a different take on Jin Yong and the martial arts genre.
The second chapter looks at the circulation of Jin Yong’s novels. It focuses on “Jinology,” the Jin Yong scholarship that consists mainly of fan letters and fan writings, which I examine as a discourse in Lacan’s quite specific use of that term, as a social link that runs on its own excess and incompleteness. The tragedy of Qiao Feng in The Demi-Gods and Semi-Demons (Tianlong Babu) is unfolded in the third chapter, using an insight from Lacan’s schema L: Qiao Feng starts fully assuming his subjectivity only when he realizes that there is no Other of the Other, and that the Other does not guarantee justice. The fourth chapter looks at the impossibility of the sexual relationship, and the infinity of desire and drive, by reading the story of the most loved couple in Jin Yong’s novels, Yang Guo and Little Dragon Maiden (Xiaolongnü) from the novel The Giant Eagle and Its Companion (Shendiao Xialü).
The first two chapters pave the way for the next two chapters’ discussions on these characters, whose stories or tragedies present a rich source for an ethical investigation of the forced choice in the conclusion. Yang Guo faces the Duty or love! challenge, a double-bind always present in Jin Yong’s novels. Qiao Feng’s forced choice between two fatherlands, on the other hand, allows us to see the meaning of self-sacrifice, and the terror of freedom to choose. We find that one simply must act even when the sacrifice is for nothing and there is no assurance that the choice made will be the right choice. And when one does act, it will be an event of love, and a moment of ethics.