Monstrosity and the Psychoanalytic Dimensions of the Uncanny

by Rodrigo Gonsalves

Overview

This accessible and meticulously researched book is a philosophical study dedicated to the psychoanalytic dimension of the uncanny and the discussions on monstrosity as fundamental concepts to address contemporary experiences of anguish, desire, suffering and alienation.

Examining the uncanny in Freud and Lacan, the book explores its emergence through psychoanalysis and aesthetics, as well as its meta-psychological implications. Chapters explore the history and connection between the uncanny and monstrosity in both philosophy and psychoanalysis, following on from the construction of Freud's 'The Uncanny' in 1919, and focusing on these concepts through different perspectives, such as Marxism. Finally, the book argues towards the importance of a monstrous grammar (re)introduced to psychoanalysis, in order to sustain a specific clinical listening of our times.

Offering new insights and arguments on these fascinating concepts, this book will be of interest to philosophers, psychoanalysts and psychologists, as well as also appealing to professionals and students in the worlds of arts, film and history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781040427330
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/27/2025
Series:	Philosophy and Psychoanalysis
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	250
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Rodrigo Gonsalves is a practicing psychoanalyst, with a PhD in Philosophy, Critical Theory and the Arts at European Graduate School and is a PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology at the University of São Paulo. He authored numerous chapters and articles about Lacanian psychoanalysis and new directions in Marxist theory. He is currently a researcher for Latesfip (Interdepartmental Laboratory of Social Theory, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis/USP), member of GPOL/PSOPOL (USP), member of the editorial committee of the journal CT&T: Continental Thought and Theory and an editor-member of Lavra Palavra, an independent publishing house from Brazil.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. On philosophy and psychoanalysis: An (uncanny) vompossibility 2. Monstrosity in dispute: Monsters in history and its implications to thinking 3. The uncanniness of monstrosity (or is it the other way around?): The contours towards another grammar between philosophy and psychoanalysis 4. Monstrosity and impasses of Fetishism: A Marxist approach (or, a debate towards "monstrous materialism") 5. A monstrous grammar for psychoanalysis Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

‘Monsters and other figures of the inhuman have become an ethical and political task that this book tackles with excellence and originality. Drawing on the strangeness that inhabits us and the very specific type of anguish it causes, Rodrigo Gonsalves paints a portrait of the monstrosities of our time, showing how every monster is always a re-edition of a previously forgotten monster, that returns to remind us that the past has not passed yet, even when they present themselves as a future to come.’

Christian Ingo Lenz Dunker, University of São Paulo

‘Rodrigo Gonsalves’ book is a landmark in the politics of negativity. In our subjective economy, negativity has to be read through the lenses of the Freudian notion of the uncanny – in this way, a new perspective opens up to investigate recent figures of monstrosity and to further our understanding of angst, fears and desires in the face of the ideological predicaments of nowadays. Gonsalves’ monstrosity suggests another look at Lacan's ethics of psychoanalysis, one pertinent for today's dimension of subjective suffering which derives from our capitalist global structure. An essential book for anyone interested in where we stand today!’

Slavoj Žižek, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of London

‘As an author who more than three decades ago happens to have written one of the seminal texts on the uncanny, I now rejoice at this new book which takes the multifarious clue of the uncanny much further and wider, using it systematically as a red thread leading from Freud’s initial insights through Lacan’s complex ramifications to Marx’s logic of commodity universe, the horror in popular culture and to the monstrous logic of the present-day capitalism – finally proposing the prospect of a monstrous materialism that could be a match for the monstrosity of late capitalism. A very necessary reading.’

Mladen Dolar, University of Ljubljana

From the Publisher