CULTURES OF FETISHISM

"Louise J. Kaplan, author of Female Perversion, explores the "fetishism strategy" in her new book, Cultures of Fetishism. The fetishism strategy is a psychological defense that aims to tame, subdue, and quell human vitalities. Challenging conventional notions of human psychology, Kaplan argues that fetishism is not just about enhancing sexual excitement." "She demonstrates the intertwined relationships between the erotic and the destructive, between sexuality and death. As she illuminates the corners of the worlds she knows best, from the psychoanalytic fetish of certainty, to Marx's theory of surplus value, to the archive fevers that beset the writers of biographies, to the films and TV shows that transform human beings into commodities, and to the robots that begin to blur the lines between humans and machines, we find ourselves looking at the world in which we live with new eyes and new understandings."--Jacket.