Description: Literary Nonfiction. FIGURES OF SPACE explores the implications of Freud's assertion that the "psyche is extended," and gives a novel approach to the understanding of the subject's relation to the world. In Mieli's words, the subjective landscape is, given its origins, intrinsically libidinized. Topics range from humor, defined as the "making of space where there is none," to angst, phobia and the uncanny, from sexual difference to hatred. Diverse examples are drawn from art, literature and cinema, including the works of Poe, Melville, Pontormo, Marina Abramovich, Otto Wagner, Charlie Chaplin and Philippe Petit. Translated from the French by Jacques Houis.
Brief description: Paola Mieli is a psychoanalyst practicing in New York. A founding member and president of Après-Coup Psychoanalytic Association, she has written on psychoanalysis, psychoanalysis and culture, literature, art, and politics. Her essays have been published in the US, South America, and Europe.