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Published online: 16 September 2024
© The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2024
Meera Lee has edited a collection of essays entitled Lacan's Cruelty: Perversion Beyond Philosophy, Culture and Clinic, which present a wide-ranging introduction to Lacan's teachings on perversion over the course of his oeuvre. Part of the Palgrave Lacan series, the book marks an important contribution to Lacanian studies as the essays manage to cut to the root of the perverse structure and isolate Lacan's important reflections and insights into perversion across culture, politics, the clinic, and philosophy. The book includes essays on Lacan's theory of perversion and contemporary queer theory by Frédéric Baitinger, to a rich discussion on Lacan and Derrida on cruelty by Jean-Michel Rabaté, to a fresh analysis of the Marquis de Sade by Gregg Lambert, to a brilliant clinical analysis of perversion that cuts to the heart of the perverse structure in Tracy McNulty's “The Anxiety at the Heart of Perverse Experience: A Clinical Perspective.” Meera Lee's essay in the collection, “Perversion After Freud: From the Cruel Father to the Joycean Clinic,” describes the ways that Lacan modifies his theory of perversion after he turns to the later period of Seminar XX and the “Joycean clinic.” A short piece, “‘The Pornography of His Eyes’: A Vignette of Perversion” by Derek Hook and Benjamin Strosberg presents an interesting case study of perversion based not on a clinical observation but from a prison education context. Stephanie Swales's essay “Neoliberalism and Liminality: Perverse Cruelties in the Age of the Capitalist Discourse” considers the way that Lacan's notions of the capitalist discourse generate perverse effects in social life.
My objective in this review is threefold: I begin by incorporating the various insights across these essays into a clear breakdown of Lacan's clinical point of view regarding perversion; secondly, I invoke the philosophical lessons of perve