A major participant in the influential Tel Quel group in France, Jean-Joseph Gou
x here offers a bold reevaluation of both the Marxist economic model and the Fre
udian concept of the unconscious. Symbolic Economies makes available for the fir
st time in English generous selections from Goux's Freud, Marx: Economie et symb
olique (1973) and Les iconoclastes (1978). Goux brings the theories of historica
l materialism and of psychoanalysis into play to illuminate and enrich each othe
r, and undertakes a compelling integration of the contributions of structuralism
and post-structuralism. Looking closely at the work of such major figures as La
can, Derrida, and Nietzsche, Goux extends the implications of Marxism and Freudi
anism to an interdisciplinary semiotics of value and proposes a radical concept
of exchange. Literary theorists, philosophers, social scientists, cultural histo
rians, and feminist critics alike will welcome this important and provocative wo
rk.
