Sexual Ghosts and the Whole of History
There is a complex historical dimension to desire. Desire can never be isolated from history, nor can history be isolated from desire. Yet for Fredric Jameson, who urges us to ‘always historicize’, desire is of little help when we want to historicize. A historiography that draws on the fascination with history is therefore always suspect of giving a false account of history in its totality. Could an entanglement of pleasure and pain be a way to come to terms with desire in historiography?