Jouissance as Ananda: Indian Philosophy, Feminist Theory, and Literature - Hardcover

Jouissance as Ananda is a tour de force that delivers on all of the major issues suggested by its title. The masterful analyses of Irigaray and Brennan alone make this work an important contribution to feminist theory. But in conjunction with the equally masterful analyses of Aurobindo and Tagore, Ashmita Khasnabish has succeeded in creating a space around the ego in which East and West have taken significant steps closer to each other. -- Paget Henry, Brown University Admirable both for its scope and creative interpretations, Jouissance As Ananda is a landmark in the scholarship of psychoanalysis, philosophy, feminist theory, and literature. Its interdisciplinary and cross-cultural analysis of ego-transcendence should interest a wide audience of international scholars sensitive to Ashmita Khasnabish's mastery of Indian and Western intellectual thought. * South Asian Review * This study is a groundbreaking analysis critiquing Western psychoanalysis from the author's own unique Indian philosophical and psychoanalytical background. This juxtaposition of concepts results in a work of great insight, clarity, and focus. -- Teresa Brennan, Florida Atlantic University, University of Amsterdam

Jouissance as Ananda seeks to resolve the often-problematic Western concept of the ego by proposing a cross-cultural theory of consciousness that draws on Indian philosophy. Author Ashmita Khasnabish uses the Indian concept of ananda to advance Irigaray's theory of jouissance and offers a re-reading of jouissance from an Indian cross-cultural psychoanalytic point of view.