Enigmatic Masculinities: A Reply to Swartz and Grossmark

Abstract

In reply to Swartz and Grossmark’s commentaries on my paper about encounters with the masculine, I elaborate from a reflexive stance on the notions of context, positionality, and warrants to speak in my writing and the responses. My account is part of an unfolding exploration of how I stand as a gendered being within psychotherapeutic praxis, and in line with that, how what was intimated in my original paper points to Laplanche’s theorizing on the sexual and to his notion of enigmatic seduction in ongoing gendering processes. The reply finds itself haunted by the abject and its position within the postcolony, and with a desire for what is an illusory transcendence.

Notes

¹ I suspect that Butler might consider my appropriation of her work in this citation to be in the service nefarious ends.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas Burkhalter

Thomas Burkhalter, M.Ed., is a member of the South African Psychoanalysis Initiative and works as a psychotherapist in private practice. He has a master’s degree in Educational Psychology and is currently engaged in doctoral research in the Department of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.