The Sultan's Court by Alain Grosrichard
A survey of Western accounts of "Oriental despotism" in the 17th and 18th centuries, focusing particularly on portrayals of the Ottoman empire and the supposedly enigmatic structure of the despot's court - the seraglio - with its viziers, dwarfs, mutes, eunuchs and countless wives.
What Said's Orientalism achieves in breadth, The Sultan's Court provides in depth: the precise outline-the elementary formula-of the sexual-political fantasy of 'Oriental Despotism' which structures our perception of the Muslim countries from the seventeenth century to our own times, and on to which Western ideology projects its own inconsistencies and repressed traumasCombining French elegance and clarity of style with the highest conceptual stringency, this immensely readable book demonstrates the extraordinary potential of Lacanian pyschoanalysis for social analysis. A classic of the theory of ideology, to be ranged with the greatest achievements of Adorno, Foucault or Jameson! -- Slavoj Zizek
Alain Grosrichard is Professor of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century French Literature at the University of Geneva and was a member of the Ecole de la Cause Freudienne. He has published widely on psychoanalysis and the history of literature.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781859841228 |
| ISBN 10 | 1859841228 |
| Title | The Sultan's Court |
| Author | Alain Grosrichard |
| Series | Wo Es War |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Verso Books |
| Year published | 1998-08-17 |
| Number of pages | 256 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |