Description
If John Kucich's other books and articles have not already established him as one of today's leading and most interesting authorities on Victorian literature and culture (and I think they have), then Imperial Masochism certainly will do so. This is a sophisticated and well-written study. -- Patrick Brantlinger, Indiana University Imperial Masochism is at once a powerfully analytic and integrative book, clinically anatomizing the generative psychosocial dynamics of masochism while demonstrating through a wealth of interpretive illustration their pervasive influence on late-Victorian literature. It is sure to provoke welcome controversy among literary critics and scholars of class and empire. -- Andrew H. Miller, Indiana University
About the Author
John Kucich is Professor of English at Rutgers University. He is the author of "The Power of Lies: Transgression in Victorian Fiction; Repression in Victorian Fiction"; and "Excess and Restraint in the Novels of Charles Dickens". He is also the coeditor of "Victorian Afterlife: Postmodern Culture Rewrites the Nineteenth Century".
Reviews
"In this elegant study, Kucich demonstrates the possibility of mutually implicating psychoanalytic theories, literary texts, and colonial discourses of race and class without losing sight of the specificity of each of these areas. In addition, he offers up a theoretically supple account of how masochistic fantasy can serve as a 'switching point' between otherwise disparate codes of thought and speech ... [H]e shows how relational theories of masochism can be productive as a supplement to, or substitute for, Freudian ones; he reintroduces a more meticulous analysis of class into discussions of racial and sexual fantasy; and he offers illuminating readings of Rudyard Kipling, Olive Schreiner, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Joseph Conrad that clarify the stakes of current arguments over empire and over masochism... This is one of the best recent books on literature, empire, and fantasy this reviewer has encountered."--J. B. Jones, Central Connecticut State University, for Choice "Imperial Masochism [is] an important read for scholars who are open to stepping out of the established boundaries in order to tread new paths of inquiry."--Monica Ingber, In-Spire, Journal of Law, Politics and Societies "In his thought-provoking new book, John Kucich burnishes his reputation as one of the best critics we currently have bringing the insights of psychoanalysis to the interpretation of cultural history... Imperial Masochism is an important intervention in colonial discourse studies."--Dan Bivona, Modern Philology "In compelling case studies, Kucich analyses this rewriting and suggests convincingly the value of psychoanalysis to historicist literary criticism."--Mary Elizabeth Leighton, Nineteenth-Century Contexts
Book Information
ISBN 9780691127125
Author John Kucich
Format Hardback
Page Count 280
Imprint Princeton University Press
Publisher Princeton University Press
Weight(grams) 539g