A Canon of Empty Fathers

"A Canon of Empty Fathers: Paternity in Portuguese Narrative is the first book-length study that analyzes the repeated and peculiar deployment of the father figure in Portuguese narratives from the nineteenth century to the present day. In it, Phillip Rothwell argues for a specifically Portuguese tendency toward what he terms "empty paternity" - a corruption of the Lacanian paternal function that has surfaced continuously in Portuguese culture from the fifteenth century onward." "Drawing on theories of materialist Lacanians, including Slavoj Zizek and Alenka Zupancic, Rothwell weaves together history, psychoanalysis, and literature in a wide-ranging interrogation of Portugal's imperial and postimperial consciousness."--book jacket.