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Transference and the Cultural Imaginary
Gabriele Schwab
Professor of English
UC Irvine
In my contribution I will outline a theory of literary transference
in relation to more general phenomena of cultural transference and their
role in the cultural imaginary. I argue that we need to expand the paradigms
of textuality and cultural translation that have dominated discussions
about the relationship between literature and culture to include transference
as a new paradigm able to address the cultural function of literature from
the vantage point of a non-realist epistemology. A theory of transference
allows one to develop a non-realist, non-representational model of reading
and reception that would not only be valid for literature but also for
aesthetic experience more generally. I will draw on a range of theories,
including Bateson, Bollas, Winnicott, Maturana and Varela, Dissanayake,
and Hayles in order to prepare the ground for a theory of transference
that reaches beyond the confines of its original grounding in psychoanalysis
and object relations theory. I see such a theory of literary transference
as an expansion of my earlier theories developed in Subjects without
Selves (Harvard) and The Mirror and the Killer-Queen (Indiana).
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