by Shauni De Gussem & Janne Quintelier | Vol 39 (2) 2021
This interview investigates the personal views from podcaster and lecturer Mary Wild, and filmmaker Jasper Vrancken on how they make possible a dialogue between the field of film theory and psychoanalytic theory, about their singular interpretation of psychoanalysis “outside the realm of the clinical” and about their views and shared (psychoanalytic) interest in the body in the genre of horror films.
by Kobe Keymeulen | Vol 39 (2) 2021
Summary: This paper investigates the significance of filmic analysis in the contemporary theoretical paradigm inspired by Slavoj Žižek, which we term ‘Transcendental Materialism’. After characterising its distinct peculiarities within the history of psychoanalysis and film theory, we demonstrate the limitations of previous (possible) answers, arguing they are partly formulated in response to confrontations with other paradigms. Our own approach is then informed by a study of another popular object of analysis in Transcendental Materialism – the joke. We show how Freud’s understanding of the joke was adapted by the paradigm and supported further by certain philosophical insights by (among others) G.W.F. Hegel. Finally, we demonstrate how parallels can be drawn between this adaptation and the significance of the filmic form within Transcendental Materialism, inspired in part by Alain Badiou’s reading of Hegel.