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Books by Concetta V Principe

the Bible and Critical Theory, 2017

A group of scholars critiquing secularism, Blanton et al, have reclaimed radical theology in the ... more A group of scholars critiquing secularism, Blanton et al, have reclaimed radical theology in the wake of 9/11 for a new political activism in An Insurrectionist Manifesto: Four New Gospels for A Radical Politics (2016), using Paul and his Gospel on the messiah as the central motif. This review brings the political text on the insurrection into dialogue with a long poem by MacEwen on the British officer who led the Arab insurrection in 1916, T. E. Lawrence, to explore the messianic expectations surrounding historical and contemporary insurrections.

forthcoming in 2015 with Palgrave Macmillan

Concetta Principe's Walking explores religious differences and secular politics through the medit... more Concetta Principe's Walking explores religious differences and secular politics through the meditative lenses of lyric, prose and serial poetry. Walking occurs in the mind through dreams, in memory, and as a relentless process of bearing witness to the earthly, quotidian activities that challenge super-natural abstractions. As the unconverted pilgrim of the book eats nothing, she who inhabit the stairways and closed doors of Jerusalem. This collection of prose and lyric poems offers a revelatory maze of mystery and discovery.

Papers by Concetta V Principe

Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society

Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society , 2020

This paper furthers my argument that the religious messianic figure in secular projects reflects ... more This paper furthers my argument that the religious messianic figure in secular projects reflects a trauma of secularism.

Psychoanalytic Discourse/ Discours psychoanalytique, 2017

The Bible and Critical Theory, 2017

My aim in this paper is to question the apparently mutually supportive bind between legal and psy... more My aim in this paper is to question the apparently mutually supportive bind between legal and psychoanalytic discourse in order to refine the methods used in Trauma Studies. I will do this by first reviewing Leys' (2000) critique of Caruth's (1996) work and then follow that by an analysis of Hiroshima, mon amour (1958) which, as a film based on a screenplay by Marguerite Duras about the ethical impact of the U.S. bombing of Japan to end WWII, gives us ample opportunity to see to what extent the legal and the psychoanalytic discourses are and are not bound to each other. Mon but dans cet article est de questionner la connexion entre la liaison apparemment mutuellement solidaire entre le discours légal et psychanalytique afin de raffiner les méthodes utilisées dans les études sur le trauma. Afin de réaliser ce but je réviserai d'abord la critique proposée par Leys de l'oeuvre de Caruth et ensuite j'analyserai Hiroshima mon amour, un film qui – basé sur le scénario de Marguerite Duras concernant l'impact éthique du bombardement du Japon – nous fournit l'opportunité de considérer jusqu'où les discours légaux et psychanalytiques sont ou ne sont pas solidaires. (Translation: Alireza Taheri)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: The self-absorption with which G... more In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
The self-absorption with which Gertrude Stein read literature and philosophy was reflected in the autobiographical interests of her literary production.1 The scope of this production has inspired some psychoanalytic approaches to analyzing her work, such as research by Merill Cole and Priscilla Wald; while Cole focuses on a more semiotic analysis through the Oedipal signifier of the Name of the Father in Stein’s work, Wald explores her literature through the historical context of Stein’s autobiography as a lesbian and second generation American immigrant.2 In this article, I am interested in reading Stein’s work psychoanalytically, but with a particular consideration of the relation between her language practice and her Jewishness.3

Inspired as Stein was by visual artists in her Paris community, her experiments in representing people repeating themselves “insistently,” led her to devise a unique history of American migration in The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family’s Progress (TMA) (1925).4 Evident in Stein’s stylistic signature of repetition in her portrait making are repetitive motifs in her works based on her life, which Wald brings to light in her analysis.5 One motif in particular is emphasized in Barbara Will’s paper on Stein and Zionism in which she observes that the race-centered focus in Stein’s “more explicitly Jewish autobiographical novel Q.E.D. (1903)” is repeated in the representation in Melanctha.6 While this race-thinking may explain an avoidance Maria Damon sees in Stein scholarship, my attention is drawn to the fact that the recurring racial narratives would suggest a repetition symptomatic of trauma. In the Freudian sense, the compulsive repetition that denotes trauma is always a return of the crisis that was missed. In Unclaimed Experiences, Cathy Caruth reconstructs Freud’s consideration of the medieval figure of Tancred, who murders his fiancée a second time, to emphasize how he does so “against his very will.”7 In Lacan’s terms, the recurrence of trauma arrives “as if by chance.”8 The apparent destiny of traumatic repetition is integral to its retrospective nature: only after the crisis can the subject look back and retroactively posit a narrative by which to make visible the missed event. Stein’s training in psychology encourages my reading of the TMA chapters “Martha Hersland” and “Alfred Hersland and Julia Dehning” together and with Q.E.D., in relation to Stein’s biography, as reflecting the working through of a series of personal traumas; as my analysis will show, leaking through the conscious efforts by Stein in her literary works, we can see what may be understood as an unconscious expression of the trauma of her Jewish difference in Protestant America.