On Yugoslav Poststructuralism: Introduction to “Art, Society/Text”

“Umetnost, družba/tekst” was an editorial published in the Slovenian journal Problemi-Razprave (Problems-Debates) in 1975. The journal was the central outlet of the so-called Slovenian Lacanian school and as such the most important place for the reception of French anti-humanist philosophy in the former Yugoslavia. The concept of the journal was based on interpreting French post-structuralism in the spirit of the Tel Quel magazine, anti-humanist Marxism in the spirit of Louis Althusser, theoretical psychoanalysis in the spirit of Jacques Lacan and his followers, as well as on a special blend of Lacanian psychoanalysis and Althusserian ideology critique, which characterised the French journal Cahiers pour l’Analyse. One might also find theoretical and conceptual similarities between Problemi and other French post-structuralist periodicals, such as Peinture, cahiers théoriques and Cahiers du cinéma. The editorial presented here is thus a unique example of introducing structuralism, post-structuralism, and Lacanian psychoanalysis into debates about society, culture, ideology, and art in Yugoslavia in that time.

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