Overview
- Revises and responds to popular accounts of Lacan’s relation to Marx
- Provides the first existing historical study of Lacan’s interactions with French Marxism
- Situates Lacan’s theories in the context of Soviet psychology
Part of the book series: The Palgrave Lacan Series (PALS)
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About this book
This book is about Jacques Lacan’s place in the history of Marxist thought. It argues that psychoanalysisas understood by Lacanrepresents a radical departure from the Marxist tradition and its politics—but also that the political value of psychoanalysis can only be properly understood in this context.
Lacan’s psychoanalytic theories are an increasingly popular resource for intellectuals on the leftwho use them to critique the psychic conditions for the functioning of capitalismand its impact on unconscious mental life. In doing sohoweverthey tend to make Lacan’s position with respect to Marx seem obviousand to overstate the potential for an alliance between the two.
This book studies key movements in twentieth-century philosophy and scienceto show how Lacan’s work asks many of the same questions Marxists were concerned withand responds to a number of the same impasses they encountered. At the same timehoweverthe book demonstrates how the different approaches Lacan makes to these points of crisis break explicitly with the Marxist tradition. The book contributes in particular to debates opened up by the philosophers of the Ljubljana Schoolincluding Slavoj Žižek and Samo Tomšič. It will be useful for readers interested in the contribution of psychoanalysis to political philosophyand in the history of twentieth-century political philosophy more generally.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Max Maher is a lecturer in the Health & Life Sciences at De Montfort University in LeicesterUK. He completed a PhD in 2023 at the University of Essex. He practices as a psychoanalyst in Leicesterand works with the New Lacanian School of the World Association of Psychoanalysis.
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Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Symptom Invented
Book Subtitle: Lacan and the History of Marxism
Authors: Max Maher
Series Title: The Palgrave Lacan Series
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-032-12266-7Due: 22 January 2026
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-032-12269-8Due: 22 January 2027
eBook ISBN: 978-3-032-12267-4Due: 13 January 2026
Series ISSN: 2946-4196
Series E-ISSN: 2946-420X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII290
Number of Illustrations: 6 b/w illustrations
Keywords
- Lacanian psychoanalysis
- Psychosocial Studies
- Marxism
- Hegel
- dialectical materialism