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University of California Press

The Triumph of Venus

The Erotics of the Market
by Jeanne Lorraine Schroeder (Author)
Hardcover eBook
Price: $85.00 / £71.00
Publication Date: Feb 2004
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 326
ISBN: 9780520234314
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Series:
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About the Book

The theory of law and economics that dominates American jurisprudence today views the market as rational and individuals as driven by the desire to increase their wealth. It is a view riddled with misconceptions, as Jeanne Lorraine Schroeder demonstrates in this challenging work, which looks at contemporary debates in legal theory through the lens of psychoanalysis and continental philosophy. Through metaphors drawn from classical mythology and interpreted via Lacanian psychoanalysis and Hegelian philosophy, Schroeder exposes the hidden and repressed erotics of the market. Her work shows how the predominant economic analysis of markets and the standard romantic critique of markets are in fact mirror images, reflecting the misconception that reason and passion are inalterably opposed.

About the Author

Jeanne Lorraine Schroeder is Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. She is the author of The Vestal and the Fasces: Hegel, Lacan, Property, and the Feminine (California, 1998).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Juno Moneta

Chapter 1. Pandora's Amphora: The Eroticism of Contract and Gift
Prologue: The Myth of Allgifts
The Nature of Gift
Gift as Potlatch
The Eroticism of the Market
Commodification and Relationship
Epilogue: Pandora's Gift

Chapter 2. Orpheus's Desire: The End of the Market
Prologue: Orpheus and Eurydice, Eros and Thanatos
The Desire of Economics
The Perfect Market
The Perfect Market as the End of the Actual Market

Chapter 3. Narcissus's Death: The Calabresi-Melamed Trichotomy
Prologue: Narcissus
Viewing the Cathedral; Seeing the Feminine
Three's a Crowd: The Calabresi and Melamed Trichotomy
Six Hypotheticals
Property
Procedural and Substantive Critiques of the Calabresi and Melamed Trichotomy
Conclusion: The Masculine Phallic Metaphor

Chapter 4. The Midas Touch: The Lethal Effect of Wealth Maximization
Prologue: The Golden Touch
Defining Wealth
The Denial of Enjoyment
Lacan avec Posner
Epilogue: The Ass's Ears

Chapter 5. The Eumenides' Return: The Founding of Law Through the Repression of the Feminine
Prologue: The Deus ex Machina
The Erinyes
The Law's Necessary Repression of the Feminine
Epilogue: The Birth of Venus

Index

Reviews

"Jeanne Schroeder is one of the finest theorists in today's legal academia. She has broad knowledge not only in law, economics, and feminist jurisprudence, but also in psychoanalysis and philosophy. Schroeder brings together very different theories and provides a completely new view on law and economics. The Triumph of Venus will be a cornerstone to a whole new approach to legal theory."—Renata Salecl, author of The Spoils of Freedom: Psychoanalysis and Feminism After the Fall of Socialism

"Jeanne Schroeder takes basic points from Hegel and Lacan and applies them to the theories that inform mainstream debates on private law. No one else does private law critique that approaches this work's ambition and scope. No one else asks questions of this depth about the private law scholarship's theoretical presuppositions. And yet that lone voice that is Schroeder's is remarkably accurate in its observations."—William W. Bratton, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center