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Capital as Master-Signifier: Zizek, Lacan, and Berardi

Sondey, William

Abstract Details

2014, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, English/Literature.
This thesis examines the way post-industrial capital manifests itself and attempts to define how it functions. Zizek's theorization of capital's fantasy dimension and its simultaneous role as the Lacanian Real is evaluated. Zizek's concept of the ideological fantasy is deemed helpful as it aids in explaining how capital perpetuates itself in a world that appears aware of its failures. His conceptualization of capital as the Real is considered to be counter-productive as it reduces the phenomenon in question to an impermeable abstraction that cannot be schematized or analyzed in any detail. In an effort to address this problem, Franco Berardi's notion of semio-capital is discussed. Berardi's work is determined to be a vital supplement to Zizek's analysis as it enables us to perceive the way in which capital functions as a master-signifier that operates according to the logic of recombination. The benefit of theorizing capital in this way is that it permits us to appreciate one of capital's chief antagonisms—the production of the experience of attentional disorders as a series of symptoms that are averse to capital's functioning and the simultaneous construction of Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder as a discursive regime aimed at policing these symptoms.
Erin Labbie (Advisor)
Becca Cragin (Committee Member)
89 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Sondey, W. (2014). Capital as Master-Signifier: Zizek, Lacan, and Berardi [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1400076867

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Sondey, William. Capital as Master-Signifier: Zizek, Lacan, and Berardi. 2014. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1400076867.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Sondey, William. "Capital as Master-Signifier: Zizek, Lacan, and Berardi." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1400076867

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)