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This is a stimulating and well-researched reference book which offers an original map of the possible relations between feminist critique and psychoanalytic theory. The
range of contributors is impressive and includes many outstanding scholars and theorists who offer critical readings and analyses derived from a large number of disciplines. Indeed, one of the most striking elements of this volume is its interdisciplinary character with entries coming from disciplinary spaces as diverse as history, literary studies, criminology, sociology, film studies, women's studies, and philosophy. The overwhelming majority of the contributors work within institutions of higher education, which seems to suggest that universities have become a crucial site for the articulation of relations between ‘feminism and psychoanalysis’ over recent years.
The Dictionary covers both concepts and movements, from bisexuality to sadomasochism via the death drive and from anthropology to postmodernism via écriture féminine, and each entry is followed by a detailed bibliography. Most entries seek to historicise their object of inquiry, offering a very helpful guide to the modifications undergone by different concepts as a result of their contact with a variety of different political and theoretical projects. The organisation of entries is at times a little surprising: separate entries on ‘death drive (Freud)’ and ‘death drive (Lacan)’, each by a different author; while ‘Freud's female patients’ and ‘female analysts’ are contained within the same entry. On the whole, however, the coherence and integrity of each entry is striking.
In any reference work of this nature, the question of the overall integrity of the volume is bound to be both pressing and complex. The rationale behind the Dictionary is explored in Elizabeth Wright's Introduction. Wright offers, in fact, slightly different accounts of the possible relations between ‘feminism’ and ‘psychoanalysis’ and thus suggests a number of different