Dr. Stella Gaon
A Political Science professor at Saint Mary’s is the winner of the 2020 Annual Symposium Book Award, presented by the Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy (CSCP/SCPC). Dr. Stella Gaon received the 15th annual award for her monograph, The Lucid Vigil: Deconstruction, Desire and the Politics of Critique (Routledge, 2019).
The competition is organized by the CSCP/SCPC and Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy, and judging criteria include originality and the importance of a book in its field of investigation. The award results were conveyed on December 11 by Symposium’s Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Lorraine Markotic of the University of Calgary’s Department of Philosophy. As with previous winners, Dr. Gaon has been invited to deliver a plenary paper at the 2021 annual conference of the CSCP/SCPC, to be held at Memorial University next fall.
The Lucid Vigil: Deconstruction, Desire and the Politics of Critique
The Lucid Vigil is the first publication in Routledge’s new Psychoanalytic Political Theory series, which aims to “deepen our understanding of the complex relationships between the world of politics and the inner world of the psyche”. In this contribution Dr. Gaon explores the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud through the lens of his contemporary interpreter, Jean Laplanche. The intent, she explains, is to “demonstrate the imperative nature and the political implications of deconstructive practices of reading, particularly with regard to contemporary debates about political identity.”
The Saint Mary’s Department of Political Science held a book launch on campus last year, and since then The Lucid Vigil has received positive reviews in the U.S. as well. It's a “brilliant new work,” says a review by Michael Naas of DePaul University, Chicago. “This work should set the record straight once and for all and should cause anyone interested in questions of ethics and politics to return to Derrida’s work, both early and late, with renewed attention, passion, and urgency."
In another review, Elisabeth Weber of the University of California, Santa Barbara adds, “For Gaon, deconstruction exemplifies critical thinking: the unflinching interrogation of the categories through which good and evil, fact and fiction, the righteous and the reprehensible are established. With admirable conceptual clarity, Gaon’s captivating book explores the pivotal ramifications of a deconstructive mode of analysis for pedagogy, politics and ethics.”
Dr. Gaon specializes in political theory and contemporary social and political thought. She is also Adjunct Professor of Women and Gender Studies. Previous publications include Democracy in Crisis: Violence, Alterity, Community (Manchester UP, 2010) and, most recently, an article entitled “Lies in the Time of COVID.”