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Exploring the Interplay of Edward Sapir's Anthropology and Lacanian Psychoanalysis

Culture and Subjectivity

Lenart Kodre

Was Edward Sapir’s perspective on culture and personality groundbreaking, or should we regard it as just one more theory that reached a scientific dead-end? Exploring the Interplay of Edward Sapir's Anthropology and Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Culture and Subjectivity introduces a fresh perspective to traditional anthropological discourse by exploring Edward Sapir’s insights into culture and personality relationship alongside Jacques Lacan’s theories on the individual and collective. This book reassesses the dynamics between subjective and social realms, paving the way for potentially a new anthropological model of subjectivity and the definition of culture. Exploring the historical context of anthropology-psychoanalysis relationships, this book synthesizes diverse conceptions of culture and personality through an interdisciplinary lens. By leveraging Lacan’s theoretical framework to interpret Sapir’s bold ideas on the culture-personality dyad, it assesses integrating Lacanian subjectivity into the culture-individual relationship, bridging commonalities between the two fields and introducing insights into their interdisciplinary interplay. This book summarizes key findings from Lacanian subjectivity theory and examines a new perspective on the process of cultural transmission and socialization by highlighting Sapir`s pioneering view on the relationship between the individual and society. It also addresses ontological, epistemological, and methodological questions in anthropology through Lacanian dynamics of desire.

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Lexington Books
Pages: 202 • Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-66696-722-7 • Hardback • March 2025 • $105.00 • (£81.00)
Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural, Psychology / Personality, Social Science / Sociology / Social Theory

Lenart Kodre is an anthropologist and earned his Ph.D. in 2016.

Prologue

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Introduction: How to Fail Better?

Chapter 2: Theory on the Couch: Anthropology and Psychoanalysis, a Love at First Sigh(t)

Intersecting Paths: Freudian Anthropological Endeavors and Structuralist Engagement of Lacan and Lévi-Strauss

The Concept of “Culture” in Anthropology

The Birth of a Concept

Subjectivity in Anthropology – Culture and Personality Studies

Subjectivity “in the Field”: Descriptive Use of Psychoanalytic Theory in Psychological Anthropology - Kardiner, Mead, Kluckhohn and Whitings

The Odd Couple: Methodological and Epistemological Dilemmas with “Culture” and “Personality” in Anthropology

The Illusory Dichotomy of “Culture-Personality”: A Psychoanalytic Approach

The Unconscious and Freud's Legacy of the “Deceptive” Ego

Chapter 3: Culture and the Unconscious - Edward Sapir and Jacques Lacan: From Culture and Personality to the Subject of the Unconscious

Subjectivity in the Theory of Jacques Lacan

Pattern of Culture and Logic of the Signifier

The Grammar of the Unconscious – the Symbolic and the Subject

Edward Sapir: From the Subject`s History to the Subject of History

Culture and Subjectivity: Intersubjective Relations and the Intrasubjective Structure

Culture and Phantasm

Chapter 4: Anthropology, Knowledge, Truth

The “Sobject” of Anthropology

Desire and the Method

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

"Not much attention has been paid to the possible connection between the linguistically based anthropology proposed by Edward Sapir, one of the founding fathers of anthropology, and the work of the revolutionary psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The thorough research accomplished by Lenart Kodre is breaking new ground. His investigations circumscribe the numerous points of intersection between the two thinkers, exploring the ways in which Sapir’s conception of relations between the individual and culture can be envisaged in a new light through Lacan’s concepts of the subject, the knot of the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real, the logic of desire and fantasy etc. Reflections on these encounters provide an expansive prospect of psychoanalytic contribution to anthropology, initiated by Freud’s Totem and Taboo. Kodre’s project is neither that of collapsing the distance between the two nor to keep the detachment of two separate domains, but to find the unexpected moments of truth in their intersections. This is a courageous and very necessary work."


— Mladen Dolar, University of Ljubljana


Exploring the Interplay of Edward Sapir's Anthropology and Lacanian Psychoanalysis

Culture and Subjectivity

Cover Image
Hardback
Summary
Summary
  • Was Edward Sapir’s perspective on culture and personality groundbreaking, or should we regard it as just one more theory that reached a scientific dead-end? Exploring the Interplay of Edward Sapir's Anthropology and Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Culture and Subjectivity introduces a fresh perspective to traditional anthropological discourse by exploring Edward Sapir’s insights into culture and personality relationship alongside Jacques Lacan’s theories on the individual and collective. This book reassesses the dynamics between subjective and social realms, paving the way for potentially a new anthropological model of subjectivity and the definition of culture. Exploring the historical context of anthropology-psychoanalysis relationships, this book synthesizes diverse conceptions of culture and personality through an interdisciplinary lens. By leveraging Lacan’s theoretical framework to interpret Sapir’s bold ideas on the culture-personality dyad, it assesses integrating Lacanian subjectivity into the culture-individual relationship, bridging commonalities between the two fields and introducing insights into their interdisciplinary interplay. This book summarizes key findings from Lacanian subjectivity theory and examines a new perspective on the process of cultural transmission and socialization by highlighting Sapir`s pioneering view on the relationship between the individual and society. It also addresses ontological, epistemological, and methodological questions in anthropology through Lacanian dynamics of desire.

Details
Details
  • Lexington Books
    Pages: 202 • Trim: 6 x 9
    978-1-66696-722-7 • Hardback • March 2025 • $105.00 • (£81.00)
    Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural, Psychology / Personality, Social Science / Sociology / Social Theory
Author
Author
  • Lenart Kodre is an anthropologist and earned his Ph.D. in 2016.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • Prologue

    Acknowledgments

    Chapter 1: Introduction: How to Fail Better?

    Chapter 2: Theory on the Couch: Anthropology and Psychoanalysis, a Love at First Sigh(t)

    Intersecting Paths: Freudian Anthropological Endeavors and Structuralist Engagement of Lacan and Lévi-Strauss

    The Concept of “Culture” in Anthropology

    The Birth of a Concept

    Subjectivity in Anthropology – Culture and Personality Studies

    Subjectivity “in the Field”: Descriptive Use of Psychoanalytic Theory in Psychological Anthropology - Kardiner, Mead, Kluckhohn and Whitings

    The Odd Couple: Methodological and Epistemological Dilemmas with “Culture” and “Personality” in Anthropology

    The Illusory Dichotomy of “Culture-Personality”: A Psychoanalytic Approach

    The Unconscious and Freud's Legacy of the “Deceptive” Ego

    Chapter 3: Culture and the Unconscious - Edward Sapir and Jacques Lacan: From Culture and Personality to the Subject of the Unconscious

    Subjectivity in the Theory of Jacques Lacan

    Pattern of Culture and Logic of the Signifier

    The Grammar of the Unconscious – the Symbolic and the Subject

    Edward Sapir: From the Subject`s History to the Subject of History

    Culture and Subjectivity: Intersubjective Relations and the Intrasubjective Structure

    Culture and Phantasm

    Chapter 4: Anthropology, Knowledge, Truth

    The “Sobject” of Anthropology

    Desire and the Method

    Epilogue

    Bibliography

    Index

    About the Author

Reviews
Reviews
  • "Not much attention has been paid to the possible connection between the linguistically based anthropology proposed by Edward Sapir, one of the founding fathers of anthropology, and the work of the revolutionary psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The thorough research accomplished by Lenart Kodre is breaking new ground. His investigations circumscribe the numerous points of intersection between the two thinkers, exploring the ways in which Sapir’s conception of relations between the individual and culture can be envisaged in a new light through Lacan’s concepts of the subject, the knot of the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real, the logic of desire and fantasy etc. Reflections on these encounters provide an expansive prospect of psychoanalytic contribution to anthropology, initiated by Freud’s Totem and Taboo. Kodre’s project is neither that of collapsing the distance between the two nor to keep the detachment of two separate domains, but to find the unexpected moments of truth in their intersections. This is a courageous and very necessary work."


    — Mladen Dolar, University of Ljubljana


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