Dr Amber Jacobs — Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, University of London

Dr Amber Jacobs

BA English Literature (Sussex) MA European Literatures and Languages (London), PhD (London)

Contact details

Room 503A

30 Russell Square

Department of Psychosocial Studies

Birkbeck College, University of London

London WC1B 5DT

a.jacobs@bbk.ac.uk
Tel: 020 3073 8015
Fax: 020 7631 6312

Amber Jacobs was previously a lecturer in English and Critical Theory at University of Sussex.
Her recent monograph, On Matricide: Myth, Psychoanalysis and the Law of the Mother, Columbia University Press (New York) 2007, is a feminist intervention into classical psychoanalysis via structural anthropology and feminist philosophy that posits a new post-patriarchal theory of the symbolic order.
Amber's current book addresses the question of radical passivity in western culture via an analysis of a constellation of ancient Cretan myths and their contemporary reworkings. The main theorists used in this book are Laplance, Bion and Irigaray.

Psychoanalysis - Post Freudian tradition ( Freud, Klein, Lacan, Bion, Winnicott, Andre Green, Laplanche).
Psychoanalytic feminist theory and feminist philosophy - my research is concerned with theorising beyond the classical Oedipal paradigm.
I am especially interested in the work of Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Juliet Mitchell, Jessica Benjamin Jean Laplanche (among others) as post Lacanian theorists who are attempting to think through a post-patriarchal symbolic order.
Ancient Greek myth and tragedy (feminist interpretations and political uses of) and contemporary recycling of myth in literature, culture and theory.
Writing and sexual difference, particularly contemporary literature by women.
Theories of and constructions of the maternal both in psychoanalytic feminism and contemporary culture.
Representations and constructions of misogyny in cinema, literature and visual arts.

Psychoanalysis – post Freudian tradition, psychoanalytic feminist theory and feminist philosophy, post-Lacanian theorists; Ancient Greek myth and tragedy (feminist interpretations and political uses of) and contemporary recycling of myth in literature, culture and theory; writing and sexual difference; theories of and constructions of the maternal.

Jacobs, A. (2007) On Matricide: Myth, Psychoanalysis and the Law of the Mother, Columbia University Press (New York) (217 pages)
Journal Articles
Jacobs, A. (2007) The Possibility of Theory: Melanie Klein, Luce Irigaray and the Mother-Daughter Relation, Hypatia: Journal of Feminist Philosophy (ISSN 0887 5367) Summer Issue June 2007 pp.175-193
Jacobs, A. (2006) ‘The Transmission of Affect’: Post Lacanian Feminism and the Return to the Body. Women: A Cultural Review (ISSN 0957 4042), Vol 17 Issue 1 pp.103-117 April 2006
Jacobs, A. (2004) Towards a Structural Theory of Matricide: Psychoanalysis, The Oresteia and the Maternal Prohibition, Women: A Cultural Review (ISSN 0957 4042) Vol 15 pp.19-34 March 2004