The Psychopolitics of the Oriental Father Between Omnipotence and Emasculation

With a foreword by Slavoj Žižek.

The Psychopolitics of the Oriental Father problematizes the East/West dimorphism, especially focusing on the so-called 'Modernisation' or 'Westernisation' processes in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. Its main hypothesis is that 'Modernisation' and 'Westernisation' are only euphemisms for the advent of capitalism in Asiatic and African societies, which lead to fatal transformations of the cultural and political incarnatations of the Oriental Father. The end result is a transitory rebirth of Freud's Primordial Father during the construction of the nation-state, which rises again and again anytime there are grounds for a 'state of exception'.

Bülent Somay teaches Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies in Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey. He has written extensively on the cross-connections of Psychoanalysis, Literature and Popular Culture. His publications include a book on modern utopian fiction in English, The View from the Masthead.

Foreword; Slavoj Žižek
Introduction
1. Is East East and West West?
2. The Function of the Father in the East and the West
3. The First Triangulation: Desire, Mimicry, Revolt
4. The Second Triangulation: Desire, Özenti, Envy
5. Europeanness as Masquerade
6. The Primordial Father Reborn
7. The Invention of (Re)Covering
Conclusion: Prolegomena for Another Modernity/Authenticity