Mari Ruti
Biographic Data
| ID | 1339880 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mari Ruti |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mari |
| FAMILY NAME | Ruti |
| SIGNATURE | RUTI M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 26 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The Brokenness of Being
In "The Brokenness of Being," Mari Ruti investigates the impact that trauma can have on being. Informed by her own experience of breast cancer, Ruti argues that there are some traumatic experiences that entirely change one's symbolic coordinates. She calls these types of experiences benchmark traumas. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ruti boldly explores how encountering a benchmark trauma forced her to recognize the brokenness of her being. She t…
Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis
Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis tells the story of a fundamental fight between a caring and an uncaring imagination. It helps us to recognise the uncaring imagination in politics, in culture – for example in the writings of Ayn Rand – and also in ourselves.
Writing Cure
A hybrid work of psychoanalytic autotheory that tells a story about the end of an analysis and the end of a marriage
The Ethics of Precarity
The Ethics of Opting Out
In The Ethics of Opting Out, Mari Ruti provides an accessible yet theoretically rigorous account of the ideological divisions that have animated queer theory during the last decade, paying particular attention to the field's rejection of dominant neoliberal narratives of success, cheerfulness, and self-actualization. More specifically, she focuses on queer negativity in the work of Lee Edelman, Jack Halberstam, and Lynne Huffer, and on the rhetor…
Why Some Things Matter More than Others
The Posthumanist Quest for the Universal
This essay considers the divergent efforts of Judith Butler, Alain Badiou, and Slavoj Žižek to arrive at a postmetaphysical conception of ethics that would sidestep the pitfalls of traditional Western humanism yet still possess universal applicability. Butler approaches this task through her ethics of precarity, which posits vulnerability as a foundation for a generalizable ethics of relationality in the Levinasian vein. Badiou and Žižek, in turn…
In search of defiant subjects
The Singularity of Being
Reading Lacan as a Social Critic
This essay presents a case for the sociopolitical relevance of Lacan’s commentary on the enigmatic desire of the Other. It proposes that even though the necessity of coping with the Other’s mysterious desire is a universal predicament of human life, some subject positions are much more vulnerable to the wounding or debilitating impact of this desire than others. There are, for instance, situations where having to confront the Other’s desire adds …
The Singularity of Being
Drawing on the work of Eric Santner, Slavoj Žižek, and Alenka Zupančič, this paper constructs a theory of subjective singularity from a Lacanian perspective. It argues that, unlike the “subject” (who comes into existence as a result of symbolic prohibition), or the “person” (who is aligned with the narcissistic conceits of the imaginary), the singular self emerges in response to a galvanizing directive arising from the real. This directive summon…
Winnicott with Lacan
This article asks what it might mean to live resourcefully in the contemporary cultural moment, one characterized by multiple demands on our time and attention, an accelerated and overstimulating pace of life, and an increasing fragmentation of psychic and affective space. Bringing Winnicott into conversation with Lacan, the author argues that, despite their obvious differences, both psychoanalytic theorists view excessive psychic integration as …
A world of fragile things
"How are our lives meaningful? What is the relationship of loss to creativity? How can we best engage and overcome our suffering? From Socrates to Foucault, Western philosophers have sought to define 'the art of living"--The complex craft of human existence that elicits our thoughtful participation, and the idea that even though death escapes our control, life is not something that simply happens to us in a passive manner but is instead a process…
The Fall of Fantasies
The purpose of this article is to explain to a non-Lacanian audience the broad philosophical foundations of Lacanian theory, particularly the relationship that Lacan draws between the human subject's ontological lack and his or her creative capacities. In an effort to explain Lacan's distaste for psychoanalytic approaches aimed at strengthening the ego, the article outlines the manner in which Lacan connects ego-driven fantasies to the constricti…
Why there is always a future in the future
Lee Edelman's controversial book No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive represents the most recent articulation of the so-called “antisocial thesis” in queer theory. This thesis–which emerges
Why there is always a future in the future
Lee Edelman's controversial book No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive represents the most recent articulation of the so-called “antisocial thesis” in queer theory. This thesis–which emerges
The Fall of Fantasies
The purpose of this article is to explain to a non-Lacanian audience the broad philosophical foundations of Lacanian theory, particularly the relationship that Lacan draws between the human subject's ontological lack and his or her creative capacities. In an effort to explain Lacan's distaste for psychoanalytic approaches aimed at strengthening the ego, the article outlines the manner in which Lacan connects ego-driven fantasies to the constricti…
Reading Lacan as a Social Critic
This essay presents a case for the sociopolitical relevance of Lacan’s commentary on the enigmatic desire of the Other. It proposes that even though the necessity of coping with the Other’s mysterious desire is a universal predicament of human life, some subject positions are much more vulnerable to the wounding or debilitating impact of this desire than others. There are, for instance, situations where having to confront the Other’s desire adds …
The Singularity of Being
Drawing on the work of Eric Santner, Slavoj Žižek, and Alenka Zupančič, this paper constructs a theory of subjective singularity from a Lacanian perspective. It argues that, unlike the “subject” (who comes into existence as a result of symbolic prohibition), or the “person” (who is aligned with the narcissistic conceits of the imaginary), the singular self emerges in response to a galvanizing directive arising from the real. This directive summon…
The Posthumanist Quest for the Universal
This essay considers the divergent efforts of Judith Butler, Alain Badiou, and Slavoj Žižek to arrive at a postmetaphysical conception of ethics that would sidestep the pitfalls of traditional Western humanism yet still possess universal applicability. Butler approaches this task through her ethics of precarity, which posits vulnerability as a foundation for a generalizable ethics of relationality in the Levinasian vein. Badiou and Žižek, in turn…
The Brokenness of Being
In "The Brokenness of Being," Mari Ruti investigates the impact that trauma can have on being. Informed by her own experience of breast cancer, Ruti argues that there are some traumatic experiences that entirely change one's symbolic coordinates. She calls these types of experiences benchmark traumas. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ruti boldly explores how encountering a benchmark trauma forced her to recognize the brokenness of her being. She t…
In search of defiant subjects
Winnicott with Lacan
This article asks what it might mean to live resourcefully in the contemporary cultural moment, one characterized by multiple demands on our time and attention, an accelerated and overstimulating pace of life, and an increasing fragmentation of psychic and affective space. Bringing Winnicott into conversation with Lacan, the author argues that, despite their obvious differences, both psychoanalytic theorists view excessive psychic integration as …
The Fall of Fantasies
The purpose of this article is to explain to a non-Lacanian audience the broad philosophical foundations of Lacanian theory, particularly the relationship that Lacan draws between the human subject's ontological lack and his or her creative capacities. In an effort to explain Lacan's distaste for psychoanalytic approaches aimed at strengthening the ego, the article outlines the manner in which Lacan connects ego-driven fantasies to the constricti…
Why there is always a future in the future
Lee Edelman's controversial book No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive represents the most recent articulation of the so-called “antisocial thesis” in queer theory. This thesis–which emerges
A world of fragile things
"How are our lives meaningful? What is the relationship of loss to creativity? How can we best engage and overcome our suffering? From Socrates to Foucault, Western philosophers have sought to define 'the art of living"--The complex craft of human existence that elicits our thoughtful participation, and the idea that even though death escapes our control, life is not something that simply happens to us in a passive manner but is instead a process…
The Singularity of Being
Drawing on the work of Eric Santner, Slavoj Žižek, and Alenka Zupančič, this paper constructs a theory of subjective singularity from a Lacanian perspective. It argues that, unlike the “subject” (who comes into existence as a result of symbolic prohibition), or the “person” (who is aligned with the narcissistic conceits of the imaginary), the singular self emerges in response to a galvanizing directive arising from the real. This directive summon…
Winnicott with Lacan
This article asks what it might mean to live resourcefully in the contemporary cultural moment, one characterized by multiple demands on our time and attention, an accelerated and overstimulating pace of life, and an increasing fragmentation of psychic and affective space. Bringing Winnicott into conversation with Lacan, the author argues that, despite their obvious differences, both psychoanalytic theorists view excessive psychic integration as …
The Singularity of Being
Reading Lacan as a Social Critic
This essay presents a case for the sociopolitical relevance of Lacan’s commentary on the enigmatic desire of the Other. It proposes that even though the necessity of coping with the Other’s mysterious desire is a universal predicament of human life, some subject positions are much more vulnerable to the wounding or debilitating impact of this desire than others. There are, for instance, situations where having to confront the Other’s desire adds …
In search of defiant subjects
The Posthumanist Quest for the Universal
This essay considers the divergent efforts of Judith Butler, Alain Badiou, and Slavoj Žižek to arrive at a postmetaphysical conception of ethics that would sidestep the pitfalls of traditional Western humanism yet still possess universal applicability. Butler approaches this task through her ethics of precarity, which posits vulnerability as a foundation for a generalizable ethics of relationality in the Levinasian vein. Badiou and Žižek, in turn…
Why Some Things Matter More than Others
The Ethics of Precarity
The Ethics of Opting Out
In The Ethics of Opting Out, Mari Ruti provides an accessible yet theoretically rigorous account of the ideological divisions that have animated queer theory during the last decade, paying particular attention to the field's rejection of dominant neoliberal narratives of success, cheerfulness, and self-actualization. More specifically, she focuses on queer negativity in the work of Lee Edelman, Jack Halberstam, and Lynne Huffer, and on the rhetor…
Writing Cure
A hybrid work of psychoanalytic autotheory that tells a story about the end of an analysis and the end of a marriage
Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis
Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis tells the story of a fundamental fight between a caring and an uncaring imagination. It helps us to recognise the uncaring imagination in politics, in culture – for example in the writings of Ayn Rand – and also in ourselves.
The Brokenness of Being
In "The Brokenness of Being," Mari Ruti investigates the impact that trauma can have on being. Informed by her own experience of breast cancer, Ruti argues that there are some traumatic experiences that entirely change one's symbolic coordinates. She calls these types of experiences benchmark traumas. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ruti boldly explores how encountering a benchmark trauma forced her to recognize the brokenness of her being. She t…
Sociology (9 works) · Psychoanalysis (8 works) · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics (8 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works) · Law (3 works)