English Department Faculty
Frances Restuccia
Professor
Frances Restuccia
Ph.D.
Contact
Stokes Hall S387
Telephone: 617-552-8277
Email: restucci@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., Occidental College
- M.A., Occidental College
- Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
Department
Biography
Professor of English at Boston College, Frances L. Restuccia teaches contemporary theory, modernism, and novels of the non-Western world.聽 She is the author of聽James Joyce and the Law of the Father聽(Yale UP);聽Melancholics in Love: Representing Women鈥檚 Depression and Domestic Abuse聽(Rowman & Littlefield);聽Amorous Acts: Lacanian Ethics in Modernism, Film, and Queer Theory聽(Stanford UP);聽The Blue Box: Kristevan/Lacanian Readings of Contemporary Film聽(Continuum), and聽Agamben鈥檚 Political Ontology of Nudity in Literature and Art聽(Routledge). She has published essays on authors such as Austen, Wharton, Woolf, Forster, Greene, Kundera, Sebald, Pamuk, Cha, Antoon, Gide, and Saint Augustine.聽 She served for five years on the MLA Executive Division Committee on Psychology, Psychoanalysis, and Literature and has co-chaired the Psychoanalytic Practices seminar at the Harvard Mahindra Humanities Center for decades. She has published an article on the psychoanalytic underpinnings of Afropessimism聽in聽Problemi聽and has an article forthcoming in聽Cultural Critique聽on the intersection of psychoanalysis and Christianity in Foucault鈥檚聽Confessions of the Flesh.聽 聽 聽聽
Publications
Books
- James Joyce and the Law of the Father, Yale UP, 1989.
- Melancholics in Love: Representations of Women's Depression and Domestic Abuse, Rowan and Littlefield, 聽February 2000.
- Amorous Acts: Lacanian Ethics in Modernism, Film, and Queer Theory, Stanford UP, 2006.
- The Blue Box, Continuum, 2012.
- Agamben鈥檚 Political Ontology of Nudity聽 in Literature and Art,聽Routledge, 2019.
Articles and Essays in Collections
- "'A Cave of My Own': 聽The Sexual Politics of Indeterminacy," Raritan, vol. 9, no. 2 (fall 1989), pp. 110-128.
- 鈥淗omo Homini Lupus: 聽Milan Kundera's The Joke," 聽Contemporary Literature, vol. 31, no. 3 (fall 1990), pp. 281-299. 聽(Reprinted in Garland Press 1992 edition of critical essays on Kundera.)
- "'A Black Morning': 聽Kristevan Melancholia in Jane Austen's Emma," 聽American Imago, vol. 51, no. 4 聽(winter 1994), pp. 447-469.
- "Literary Representations of Battered Women: Spectacular Domestic Punishment," Genders, vol. 23 (spring 1996), pp. 42-71. (Reprinted in Bodies of Writing, Bodies in Performance, ed. Foster, Siegel, and Berry, NYU Press, 1996.)
- "Tales of Beauty: 聽 Aestheticizing Female Melancholia," 聽American Imago, vol. 53, no. 4 (winter 1996), pp. 353-83.
- "Conjurings: 聽Mourning and Abjection in Story of O and Return to the Ch芒teau,鈥� Gender and Psychoanalysis, 聽vol. 3, no. 2 (April 1998), pp. 123-153. 聽(This publication includes a response to a respondent: 聽pp. 171-174.)
- "Ethical Erogenous Zones," Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society, vol. 3, no. 2 (fall 1998), pp. 109-21.
- Foreword to Serge Andr茅's What Does A Woman Want? - translated into English, New York: Other Press, July 1999, pp. xvii-xxvi.
- 鈥淭he Subject of Homosexuality: 聽Butler鈥檚 Elision鈥� (long article version), Clinical Studies: 聽International Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol. 5, no. 1, 1999, pp. 19-38.
- (This essay was also published in Lacan in America, ed. Jean-Michel Rabat茅 - Philadelphia Lacan Conference proceedings, Other Press, pp. 349-60.)
- "Molly in Furs: 聽Deleuzean/Masochian Masochism in the Writing of James Joyce" reprinted in Deleuze and Guattari: Critical Assessments, Routledge, spring, 2000.
- "Impossible Love in Breaking the Waves: 聽Mystifying Hysteria," literature and psychology, vol. 47, numbers 1 & 2, 2001. This essay has been reprinted in Lacan and Contemporary Film, ed. Todd McGowan and Sheila Kunkle, Other Press, 2004.
- 鈥淨ueer Love,鈥� in Between the Psyche and the Social: 聽Psychoanalytic Social Theory,聽
- Ed. Kelly Oliver Steve Edwin. Lanham, Maryland: 聽Rowman & Littlefield Press, 2002, pp. 83-95.
- 鈥淭aming the Real: 聽Zizek鈥檚 Missed Encounter with Kieslowski鈥檚 Insight.鈥� 聽Lacanian Ink (internet pub.), spring 2002.
- 鈥淕raham Greene鈥檚 Lacanian Encore: The End of the Affair.鈥� Religion and the Arts, vol. 7-4, 2003, pp. 369-87.
- 鈥淭he Use of Perversion: 聽Secretary or The Piano Teacher?鈥� 聽Lacanian Ink (internet pub.), spring 2004.
- "Black and Blue: 聽Kieslowski's Melancholia," in Revolt, Affect, Collectivity: The Unstable Boundaries of Kristeva鈥檚 Polis, ed. Tina Chanter and Ewa Ziarek, SUNY Press, 2005,
- pp. 193-207.
- 鈥淪ebald鈥檚 Punctum: 聽Awakening to Holocaust Trauma in Austerlitz鈥� in European Journal of English Studies, vol. 9, no. 3, Dec. 2005, pp. 301-22 聽Routledge. Special issue, titled Intimate Transfers, edited by Maria Margaroni.
- 鈥淎 Radical Ethical Imperative: 聽Sublimation Love.鈥� 聽Journal of Lacanian Studies, vol. 4,
- 聽no. 1, summer 2006, pp. 159-77. 聽(Review-article on Joan Copjec鈥檚 Imagine There鈥檚
- No Woman.)
- 鈥淜risteva鈥檚 Intimate Revolt and the Thought Specular: 聽Encountering the (Mulholland) Drive鈥� in Psychoanalysis, Aesthetics, and Politics in the Work of Kristeva, ed. Kelly Oliver, SUNY Press, 2009.
- 鈥淭he Thought Specular: 聽Kieslowski鈥檚 White and Streitfeld鈥檚 Female Perversions,鈥� Film/Philosophy, spring 2010.
- 鈥淭he Virtue of Blushing: 聽Assimilating Anxiety into Shame in Haneke鈥檚 Cach茅,鈥� Symplok膿, vol. 18, nos. 1-2, 2010.
- 鈥淲hy Can鈥檛 Dulcinea Love Us?鈥� Philosophy Today, special issue titled 鈥淰iolence and the Sacred,鈥� Vol. 56:2, summer 2012.
- 鈥淪ebastian鈥檚 Skull: 聽Establishing the 鈥楽ociety of the Icon,鈥欌�� a chapter in Kristeva鈥檚 Fiction, Ed. Benigno Trigo, SUNY Press, September 2013.
- 鈥淎 Messianic Aesthetic: Lily Briscoe鈥檚 Vision,鈥� Genre, Vol. 49, spring 2016.
- 鈥淭he Melancholic and Messianic Allure of Venice or How Best to Access the Inaccessible,鈥� Philosophy Today, Vol. 60, spring 2016.
- 鈥溾�橝 Black Passion鈥�: Voiding Melancholic Obsession in Pamuk鈥檚 The Museum of Innocence,鈥� American Imago, Vol. 73, spring 2016.