Torben Lohmüller
Die verschlagene Lust: Zur ästhetischen Subversion im Masochismus.
Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2006. Probleme der Dichtung. 9783825352455 186 pages.
Hardcover volume, measuring approximately 6.75" x 9.75", is new, still in shrinkwrap.
"‎For a long time, masochism and its most famous representative, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, were treated primarily as phenomena of psychopathia sexualis. "Die verschlagene Lust" uses newer approaches, including queer studies and Deleuzian psychoanalysis, to understand the subversive potential of this highly aesthetic perversion and discovers its central role in a critical reflection on the conditions of subjectivity. Based on such a reflection, as exemplified by the Hegelian Master-Servant dialectic, and the question of how the desire for submission is articulated in modern and postmodern confessional discourse, their pictorial and theatrical qualities are examined in detail. In addition to Sacher-Masoch himself, Sigmund Freud, Jean Paul Sartre, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Friedrich Nietzsche, Rafael Cansinos-Assens and Hermann Nitsch provide the material for this.‎"