Duane Rousselle

Duane Rousselle (born April 28, 1982) is a Canadian sociological theorist, Lacanian psychoanalyst, and professor of sociology.

He works in several academic fields including social movement theory, Lacanian psychoanalysis, cultural sociology, gender studies, anarchist studies, and Continental philosophy. His work attempts to introduce an alternative to scholarly discourses that aim to produce consistent and coherent bodies of knowledge (e.g., "university discourse"). It also offers a counterpoint to what Jacques Lacan has called "capitalist discourse."

He helped to contribute to the emergence of a new field of scholarly investigation known as "post-anarchism." He founded and edits the journal ''Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies.'' He is a noted Canadian public intellectual. He is often referred to as among the second generation of the Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis alongside Todd McGowan. His work has been translated into multiple languages, including Russian, Arabic, Turkish, and Spanish.

Biography

Duane was born in Miramichi, New Brunswick to Catholic parents. He attended the New Brunswick Community College and graduated with a diploma in Electronic Game Design. After participating in a hunger strike for admittance, he was accepted as a Sociology Major at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. During this first year of his university education, he experienced devastating poverty, sleeping on park benches. He received numerous prestigious awards, including the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick silver medal for excellence in scholarship.

He went on to complete a master's degree in sociology from the University of New Brunswick before joining the PhD program in Cultural Studies from Trent University. During his time in Peterborough, he became a Freemason. He was awarded the Governor General of Canada Gold Medal for his research into clinical psychoanalysis and continental philosophy.

He studied also at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, working as an assistant for Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou.

In 2016, Duane raised more than $100,000 to help rebuild a mosque that was attacked in a hate crime in Peterborough, Ontario. His efforts received international attention and he was invited for a private meeting with the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This was the subject of a documentary film by Matthew Hayes, ''The Masjid.'' Duane received several death threats at this time and went into hiding.

Duane converted to Islam in order to marry his former partner. This relationship was documented by Colin Boyd Shafer in his documentary photo exhibit ''Interlove Project.''

In 2019, Duane moved to Mumbai. In 2020, he returned to Canada and accepted an appointment to teach at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Nipissing University. In 2021, he became engaged to the "negative psychoanalyst" Julie Reshe. Rousselle taught psychology and sociology at a university in Tyumen, Siberia, but fled to Kazakhstan with his fiancée and their daughter following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Duane is a Visiting associate professor of sociology at the University College of Dublin. He currently holds the position of Associate Dean of Research and Associate Professor at the Aga Khan University. In 2024, he established a psychoanalysis circle in Pakistan and became the inaugural president of the Pakistan Psychoanalytic Society.

Thought

Post-anarchism

Duane was a leading proponent of "post-anarchism." He published numerous texts and edited the foundational book "Post-Anarchism: A Reader." He has argued that post-anarchism allowed anarchists to reflect upon their own presuppositions and to discover problems with theories of revolutionary and insurrection. He said that "what was so essential about post-anarchist theory was that it surprised anarchists. We became surprised by what it was that we have been saying for over 150 years."

Particular affirmations

One of Duane's key theories is that there has been a rise in the logic of 'particular affirmations' of enjoyment after what Slavoj Žižek and others referred to as the decline of symbolic efficiency. These 'particular affirmations' are capable of producing the same results as modern fascism without any need of prohibitions against particular segments of the population. This logic has developed out of close readings of the late teachings of Jacques Lacan and the seminars of Jacques-Alain Miller. His argument was central to a debate with the noted philosopher Slavoj Žižek.

The Ljubljana School

One of his major projects has been to perform a torsion of the work of the Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis, resituating their theories into another register In several published debates between himself and Slavoj Zizek he has advanced critiques of their theories of ideology, constitutive lack, surplus jouissance, totality, and capitalism to arrive at a distinctively anarchist psychoanalytic theory of contemporary politics.

Dreams

Duane has argued that the dream is a meta-verse and that today we dream outside of ourselves. He argues that there are today the perpetuation of false negativities, which are actually fawnings/faux-negs of jouissance or enjoyment. The argument is that our satisfactions are perpetuated through naive notions of cynicism, negativity, criticality, and so on.

Faux-negs

In recent work, Duane has argued that theories of the death drive within Freudo-Marxism have led to misleading characterizations of the concept of negativity. He has claimed that the concept of negativity actually demonstrates positive fixations of jouissance. He has claimed that much of radical leftist continental philosophy today promotes “false negatives” and “false twists.”

Platform capitalism

His work focuses on what he terms “feudal fixations” which remain present within so-called contemporary capitalism. His claim is that we are today in a sort of “plat-farm” capitalism, which is really capitalism in a feudal mode. This has led to a controversial statement that “capitalism would be an advancement.”

Psychoanalytic sociology

Duane has argued that psychoanalytic sociology is "not a sociology of psychoanalysis," but rather "the psychoanalyst's sociology." He remarks that the psychoanalyst's sociology begins with what is singular, that is, with what remains resolutely non-social. Hence, against pragmatic sociology, psychoanalysis focuses on what doesn't work and the inexistence of the social relationship. His claim is that psychoanalysis becomes a sociology in the domain of 'possibility,' by experimenting with social bonds or institutions that are not based upon principles of hierarchical exploitation nor horizontal segregation.

Awards

Works

* Post-Anarchism: A Reader (Pluto Books)
* After Post-Anarchism (Repartee Books/LBC)
* Lacanian Realism: Political and Clinical Psychoanalysis (Bloomsbury Books)
* Jacques Lacan and American Sociology: Be Wary of the Image (Palgrave)
* Gender, Sexuality, and Subjectivity: A Lacanian Perspective on Identity, Language and Queer Theory (Routledge)
* Real Love: Essays on Psychoanalysis, Religion, and Society (Atropos)
* Post-anarchism and Psychoanalysis: Seminars on Politics and Society (Real Books)
* Negativity in Psychoanalysis: Theory and Clinic (Routledge)
* Psychoanalytic Sociology: A New Theory of the Social Bond (Bloomsbury)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rousselle, Duane
Canadian psychoanalysts
Canadian sociologists
Canadian anarchists
1982 births
Living people
21st-century anarchists
Postanarchists