Christian Smith: Bestriding the Threshold of the Self and the Other in Coriolanus & MerchantofVenice

Kingston Shakespeare Podcasts

The encounter between the self and the other as understood through Jean Laplanche’s psychoanalytic theory set in the Hegelian dialectic will be explored using three instances of the word threshold in Shakespeare. Two instances occur in Coriolanus – between Virgilia and Martius and between Aufidius and Martius – and one occurs in The Merchant of Venice – between Antonio and Shylock. The circulation of libido across the threshold, and its distortion into the death-drive and the drive for the accumulation of profit will be explored in these scenes. The role of the threshold as the site for the implantation of enigmatic signifiers or the violent intromission of trauma will be explored for its role in the distortion of libido into death-drive and profit-drive. This is a preliminary experiment (for me) in thinking through Laplanchian psychoanalysis as theory in conversation with Marxism and set in the dialectic. Bio: Christian Smith is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. His doctoral research looked at the influence that Shakespeare had on Marx, Freud and the Frankfurt School Critical Theorists. In his postdoctoral work, he is investigating the possibility that the ground through this influence traveled may have been the historical development of the dialectic. This talk was part of a one-day conference 'Shakespearean Thresholds' organised by KiSSiT (Kingston Shakespeare Seminar in Theory) held at the Rose Theatre, Kingston on April 2, 2016. The session was chaired by Ildiko Solti. See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr8kBXCK0Ks