Desire as Geopolitics

Reading The Glass Room as Central European Fantasy

Bibliographic Data

ID7821790
AuthorsJakub Eberle (0000-0001-5349-5578, Institute of International Relations Prague, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume12
Issue2
Pages172-189
Publication date2018-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Political Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-5679 • E-ISSN: 1749-5687
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ips/oly002
OpenAlexW2808097014
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited36

The concept of Central Europe emerges from the tension between the aspiration for a Western identity and the failure to achieve it. This article analyzes The Glass Room, a novel by the British author Simon Mawer set in Brno, Czech Republic, as an artefact that sheds light on the affective dimension of this tension, as captured in the way the book speaks to the Central European desire for “Westernness.” Adopting a Lacanian perspective, I argue that The Glass Room functions as a geopolitical fantasy, bringing its Czech audiences the promise that the desired Western identity is within reach. However, this promise can never be fulfilled, since the substance of “Westernness” is too elusive to ever be possessed and is always dependent on the recognition of a Western audience. This oscillation between desire and its disappointment leads to the self-defeating politics of superiority/inferiority, which is so often seen in the region. The article makes a broader contribution by showing how desire sustains and reproduces particular conceptions of space and what role pop-culture plays in this process. In this argument, the reproduction of a geopolitical imagination depends on its ability to capture subjects’ desire for a full and stable identity.

Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis) · Art · Czech · Disappointment · Epistemology · Fantasy · Geopolitics · Identity (music) · Linguistics · Literature · Media studies · Perspective (graphical) · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Reading (process) · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Visual arts · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub