Circumcision on the Couch: The Cultural, Psychological, and Gendered Dimensions of the World's Oldest Surgery (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781501386381)

An Independent Book of the Month

Penises, and the things people do with them, have been subjects of controversy for a long time. This book examines how one thing that some people do to penises-remove the foreskin-has become a site upon which vital questions of gender, race, religion, sexuality, and psychic life are negotiated. While most contemporary work on the subject is concerned with whether circumcision is right or wrong, safe or harmful, Circumcision on the Couch takes as its starting point that the significance of male circumcision exceeds anatomical and juridical considerations.

Deploying a feminist Lacanian framework, while drawing from a wide range of archival sources and critical thought, Jordan Osserman asks: How can psychoanalysis help us shed light on the ideologies, discourses, and fantasies surrounding circumcision and the impassioned stances for and against it? And how might the history of circumcision, in turn, allow us to re-assess and clarify how we understand the split (or "snipped") subject of psychoanalysis?

Author: Jordan Osserman
ISBN-10: 1501386387
ISBN-13: 9781501386381
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Language: English
Published: 07/27/2023
Pages: 264
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.68lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.55d