Table Of ContentTHE PALGRAVE LACAN SERIES
SERIES EDITORS: CALUM NEILL · DEREK HOOK
Lacanian
Perspectives on
Blade Runner 2049
Edited by
calum neill
The Palgrave Lacan Series
Series Editors
Calum Neill
Edinburgh Napier University
Edinburgh, UK
Derek Hook
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh, USA
Jacques Lacan is one of the most important and influential thinkers of
the 20th century. The reach of this influence continues to grow as we
settle into the 21st century, the resonance of Lacan’s thought arguably
only beginning now to be properly felt, both in terms of its application
to clinical matters and in its application to a range of human activities
and interests.The Palgrave Lacan Series is a book series for the best new
writingintheLacanianfield,givingvoicetotheleadingwritersofanew
generationofLacanianthought.Theserieswillcompriseoriginalmono-
graphsandthematic,multi-authoredcollections.Thebooksintheseries
will explore aspects of Lacan’s theory from new perspectives and with
original insights. There will be books focused on particular areas of or
issues in clinical work. There will be books focused on applying Laca-
nian theory to areas and issues beyond the clinic, to matters of society,
politics,theartsandculture.Eachbook,whateveritsparticularconcern,
willworktoexpandourunderstandingofLacan’stheoryanditsvaluein
the 21st century.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15116
Calum Neill
Editor
Lacanian Perspectives
on Blade Runner
2049
Editor
Calum Neill
School of Applied Sciences
Edinburgh Napier University
Edinburgh, UK
The Palgrave Lacan Series
ISBN 978-3-030-56753-8 ISBN 978-3-030-56754-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56754-5
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For Claire,
with one more kiss, dear.
Contents
1 From Voight-Kampff to Baseline Test: By Way
of an Introduction 1
Calum Neill
2 Do Filminds Dream of Celluloid Sheep? Lacan,
Filmosophy and Blade Runner 2049 13
BenTyrer
3 Blade Runner 2049: A View of Post-Human
Capitalism 41
Slavoj Žižek
4 Between the Capitalist and the Cop: The Path
of Revolution in Blade Runner 2049 53
Todd McGowan
5 ‘ToBeHomesickwithNoPlacetoGo’:ThePhantom
of the Sinthome and the Joi of Sex 83
Daniel Bristow
vii
viii Contents
6 Home Bodies: Prosthetic People and Economies
of Desire 103
Timothy Richardson
7 Object Oriented Subjectivity: Capitalism and Desire
in Blade Runner 2049 121
Matthew Flisfeder
8 What Happens When the Replicants Become
Extimate? On the Uncanny Cut of the Capitalocene
in Blade Runner 2049 139
Alexander Bove
9 In Anxious Anticipation of Our Imminent
Obsolescence 167
Scott Contreras-Koterbay
10 “Before We Even Know What We Are, We Fear
to Lose It”:The Missing Object of the Primal Scene 189
Isabel Millar
11 Women Between Worlds: A Psychoanalysis of Sex
in Blade Runner 2049 209
Sheila Kunkle
Index 229
Notes on Contributors
Alexander Bove is an associate professor of English at Pacific Univer-
sity, where he teaches courses in nineteenth-century British literature,
criticaltheory,andfilmtheory.Hisarticleshaveappearedinseveraljour-
nals,includingLFQ:Literature/FilmQuarterly,Mediations:Journalofthe
Marxist Literary Group, ELH: English Literary History, and V21 Collec-
tive. He is author of the book Spectral Dickens: The Uncanny Forms of
NovelisticCharacterization,forthcomingonManchesterUniversityPress,
and is currently at work on a book entitled Extimate Materialism that
ExplorestheRelationBetweenFilm andthenovelthroughcriticaltheories
of comedy, the uncanny, and characterization.
Daniel Bristow is a psychoanalyst and writer, and co-creator of the
EverydayAnalysisproject.HehaspublishedwidelyonLacanianpsycho-
analysis, critical theory, and politics, and is author of Joyce and Lacan:
Reading, Writing, and Psychoanalysis, and 2001: A Space Odyssey and
LacanianPsychoanalyticTheory,whichisalsointhePalgraveLacanSeries.
Scott Contreras-Koterbay receivedhisPh.D.fromtheUniversityofSt
Andrews and is a professor in both the Department of Art & Design
ix
x Notes on Contributors
and the Department of Philosophy & Humanities at East Tennessee
State University, where he teaches aesthetics, the aesthetics of tech-
nology, artistic identity and contemporary art history as well as being
the Director of the Bert C. Bach Fine & Performing Arts Scholars
program in the Honors College. He is the author of The Potential Role
ofArtinKierkegaard’sDescriptionoftheIndividual (2004)andco-author
with Łukasz Mirocha ofThe New Aesthetic and Art: Constellations of the
Postdigital (2016).
Matthew Flisfeder is associate professor of Rhetoric and Communica-
tions atThe University of Winnipeg, Canada. He is the author of Algo-
rithmicDesire:TowardaNewStructuralistTheoryofSocialMedia (2021),
Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner (2017), and The Symbolic, The
Sublime, and Slavoj Žižek’sTheory of Film (2012), and co-editor of Žižek
and Media Studies: A Reader.
Sheila Kunkle is associate professor of Individualized Studies at
Metropolitan State University. She has published numerous articles on
psychoanalysisandculture,andcontributedchaptersonthepsychoanal-
ysis of film to Psychoanalyzing Cinema (Jan Jagodzinski, ed. 2012) and
Lars Von Tier’s Women (Rex Butler and David Denny, eds., 2017), as
well as edited the collection, Cinematic Cuts: Theorizing Film Endings
(SUNY Press, 2016).
Todd McGowan teaches theory and film at the University of Vermont.
He is the author of Universality and Identity Politics, Emancipation After
Hegel, Only a Joke Can Save Us: A Theory of Comedy, Capitalism and
Desire, and other works. He is the co-editor of the Diaeresis series with
Slavoj Žižek and Adrian Johnston at Northwestern University Press and
editor of the FilmTheory in Practice series at Bloomsbury.
Isabel Millar recently received her Ph.D. in psychoanalysis and philos-
ophy from Kingston University. Her thesis is entitled “The Psychoanal-
ysisofArtificialIntelligence.”HerworkhasappearedinStillpointMaga-
zine, Psychoanalytische Perspectieven, Vestigia, JCFAR journal, and forth-
coming publications for the Courtauld Institute of Art and Precog Maga-
zine. She is also a screenwriter and psychoanalytic script consultant for
film andTV.
