Why War?

Over the past decade, psychoanalysis has been a focus of continuing controversy for feminism, and at the centre of debates in the humanities about how we read literature and culture. In these essays, Jacqueline Rose continues her engagement with these issues while arguing for a shift of attention - from an emphasis on sexuality as writing to the place of the unconscious in the furthest reaches of or cultural and political lives. With essays on war, capital punishment and the dispute over seduction in relation to Freud, she opens up the field of psychopolitics. Finally in two extended essays on Melanie Klein and her critics, she suggests that it is time for a radical rereading of Klein's work.

Preface viii Introduction 1 Michael Payne Part I Psycho-Politics 13 1 ‘Why War?’ 15 2 Margaret Thatcher and Ruth Ellis 41 Part II The Death Drive 87 3 ‘Where Does the Misery Come From?’ – Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Event 89 4 Shakespeare and the Death Drive 110 Part III Returning to Klein 135 5 Negativity in the Work of Melanie Klein 137 6 War in the Nursery 191 An Interview with Jacqueline Rose 231 Jacqueline Rose: A Bibliography, 1974–1992 256 Nancy Weyant Appendix: Intellectual Inhibition and Eating Disorders 262 Melitta Schmideberg Index 271