(Per)versions of Love and Hate

Why, when we are desperately in love, do we endlessly block union with our love object? Why do we often destroy what we love most? Why do we search out the impossible object? Is it that we desire things because they are unavailable, and therefore, to keep desire alive, we need to prevent its fulfilment? In (Per)versions of Love and Hate, Renata Salecl explores the disturbing and complex relationships between love and hate, violence and admiration, libidinal and destructive drives, through investigation of phenomena as diverse as the novels The Age of Innocence and The Remains of the Day, Hollywood melodramas, the Siren song, Ceaucescu's Rumania and the Russian performance artist Oleg Kulik, who acts like a dog and bites his audience. For Salecl who questions the legitimacy of the calls for tolerance and respect by multiculturalists practices such as body-mutilation are symptoms of the radical change that has affected subjectivity in contemporary society.