Assoc Prof David Bennett
Reader in English and Cultural Theory
Forthcoming International Conference: Psychoanalysis, Money and the Economy, London Freud Museum, 2–4 July, 2010
The Melbourne Biopolitics Seminar
Biography
David Bennett gained his B.A. and D.Phil. degrees in English and literary theory in the UK. He was founding director of the Interdepartmental Cultural Studies program at the University of Melbourne and his teaching interests continue to span the fields of literary studies and cultural history and theory. His current research interests are in three main areas: music and postmodernism; postcolonial studies; and the cultural, political and economic history of psychoanalysis. He is an editor of the Routledge journal Postcolonial Studies, editorial board member of Hawaii University Press’s Writing Past Colonialism monograph series, a contributing editor of The Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies (Routledge) and he has held a South African Government-funded fellowship at Durban-Westville University (Durban, S.A.), where he contributed to a multi-university research project on contemporary African life-writing after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. His research on the political and cultural history of psychoanalysis has taken him to St Petersburg where he recorded interviews with psychoanalysts and scholars that formed the basis of two ABC Radio National programs on the political history of psychoanalysis in the USSR and Russia, as well some controversial publications. He recently completed a three-year Australian Research Council Discovery Project on contemporary music and postmodern cultural theory, and is currently undertaking another three-year ARC DP on the history of ‘libidinal economy’, writing a book provisionally entitled Economies of Desire: The Business and Politics of Sexual Psychology in Consumer Society. As part of the latter project, he is currently collaborating with the London Freud Museum in convening a conference on ‘Psychoanalysis, Money and the Economy’ to be held at the museum in 2010.
Teaching
- 106-036 Postmodernism
- 106-047 Art/Pornography/Blasphemy/Propaganda
- 106-403 Reading the Subject: Freud/Lacan/Fiction
Full subject descriptions are available on the University of Melbourne Handbook.
Selected publications
- Bennett, D. (2009) Ed. Postmodernism, Music and Cultural Theory, guest-edited special issue of new formations: a journal of culture/theory/politics, no. 66 (Spring 2009). Includes:
- Bennett, D. ‘Checking the Post: Music, Postmodernism or Post-postmodernism’, pp. 7–27.
- Bennett, D. Translation of J.-F. Lyotard, ‘Music and Postmodernity’, pp. 37-45.
- Bennett, D. ‘Lyotard, Post-Politics and Riotous Music’, pp. 46–57
- Colebrook, Claire and David Bennett, ‘The Sonorous, the Haptic and the Intensive’, pp. 68–80.
- Bennett, D. (2009) ‘Libidinal Economy, Consumer Culture, and the Prostitute as Proto-Revolutionary,’ Textual Practice, vol. 23, no. 6. In-press: Spring 2009.
- Bennett, D. (2009) ‘Psychoanalysis and Big Spenders’, in Psychoanalytic Encounters: Interdisciplinary Papers in Applied Psychoanalysis. Ed. Aleksandar Dimitrijevic, Elizabeth Fox and Murray Schwartz. Belgrade: Belgrade University Press. In-press: 2009
- Bennett, D. (2008) Sounding Postmodernism: Sampling Australian Composers, Sound-artists and Music Critics. Sydney: Australian Music Centre, 2008.
- Bennett, D. (2007) ‘Postmodern Eclecticism and the World Music Debate: The Politics of the Kronos Quartet’, Context: A Journal for Music Research, vol. 29-30 (Feb. 2007): 5-15
- Bennett, D. and Kouvaras, L. (2006) ‘Perspectives on Postmodernism: Sampling Australian Composers’, Sounds Australian: Journal of the Australian Music Centre, no. 67: 28—36.
- Bennett, D. (2006) ‘The Modernist and Postmodernist Arts of Noise: From the European Avant-Garde to Contemporary Australian Sound-Art’, Sound Scripts, vol. 1 (2006) Ed. C. Hope and J. Marshall (Perth: Edith Cowan University, 2006): 49-54.
- Bennett, D. and L. Kouvaras (2006) ‘Modernist Versus Postmodernist Aesthetics: Contemporary Music Criticism and the Case of Matthew Hindson’. Musicology Australia, vol. 27: 54—72.
- Bennett, D. (2005) ‘Desire as Capital: Getting a Return on the Repressed in Libidinal Economy’. In Metaphors of Economy. Ed. Nicole Bracker and Stefan Herbrechter. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, pp. 95—109.
- Bennett, D. (2005) ‘Getting the Id to Go Shopping: Psychoanalysis, Advertising, Barbie Dolls, and the Invention of the Consumer Unconscious’. Public Culture (Duke University Press), vol. 17, no. 1 (February 2005): 1-25
- Bennett, D. ‘Desire as Capital’, in N. Bracker and S. Herbrechter (eds), Metaphors of Economy (New York and Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005): 95-109.
- Bennett, D, and L. Kouvaras (2005) ‘Postmodernism and Australian Art-Music: A Case Study of Matthew Hindson’. Musicology Australia , vol. 28, no. 1 (in-press: April 2005)
- Bennett, D. ‘Global Tourism and Caribbean Culture’, Caribbean Quarterly (University of West Indies Press), vol. 51, no. 1 (March 2005): 15-24
- Bennett, D. (2004)‘The Postmodern Ends of Obscenity: Pornography, Pastiche, Self-Parody’. Southern Review , vol. 37 , no. 1 (special issue: 'Visual Culture: The Politics of the Lens and Screen', ed. A. Marsh & L. Williams): 62-75.
- Bennett, D. (2004) ‘Marketing bessoznatelnogo, kapitalizatsia analiza’. Trans. Eugeny Vlasov. Popularnaya Psychologia (Moscow), vol. 1, no. 3 (June): 15-25.
- Bennett, D. (2003) ‘Collage, Individualism and Fascism’. In Collage/Montage/Assemblage: Poésie anglaise et américaine . Ed. Paul Volsik. Special issue of Cahiers Charles V (Université Paris 7), no. 34, pp. 13-29.
- Bennett, D. ‘Marketing the Unconscious, Capitalising on Analysis’. Heat , no. 6 (December 2003), pp. 145-68.
- Bennett, D. ‘Scandals, Censorship and Transgression’. NAVA Newsletter (National Association for the Visual Arts), September-November 2003, p. 5.
- Bennett, D. Ed. Multicultural States: Rethinking Difference and Identity . London and New York: Routledge, 1998. (Republished in Japanese translation by Shohaku Sha, 2002. Also published by Routledge as an e-book.)
- Bennett, D. ‘Guilt as Capital: Psychoanalysis and the New Russians’, Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society (Ohio State University Press), vol. 6, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 123-138.
- Bennett, D. ‘Cyberporn and Reality-Effects’. AlterNation (Durban University, S. Africa), vol. 8, no. 1 (December 2001): 270-277.
- Bennett, David. ‘Buergery, vzlomshchiki i masturbatory,’ trans. Viktor Mazin i Andrei Samarin, Kabinet (St. Petersburg), vol. Ë (2001), pp. 284-308.
- Bennett, D. ‘Burghers, Burglars and Masturbators: The Sovereign Spender in the Age of Consumerism’, New Literary History (Univ. of Virginia), vol. 30, no. 2, Spring 1999, pp. 269-94.
- Bennett, D. ‘Pornography-Dot-Com: Eroticising Privacy on the Internet’. The Review of Education, Pedagogy, Cultural Studies (Penn. State University), XXIII, 4 (Fall 2001): 381-391.
- Bennett, D. ‘Liquid Assets: Sex, Money and Subjectivity in Classical Psychoanalytic Theory’. Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Literature and Psychoanalysis. Ed. Frederico Pereira. Lisbon: Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, 1999: 43-53.
- Bennett, D. ‘Russia, the Mafia and Psychoanalysis’, HEAT , vol. 13, November 1999, pp. 70ß95.
- Bennett, D. ‘The Rushdie Affair: A Chronology’, Age Saturday Extra , 3 October 1998, p. 6.
- Bennett, D. ‘Art On the Nose: Bestiality, Blasphemy, Publicity’, LIKE Art Magazine , no. 5, February 1998, pp. 6ß7.
- Bennett, D. ‘Salman Rushdie as post-postmodernist: The Politics of Genres and Self-representation in the Satanic Verses Affair’, The Review of Education, Pedagogy, Cultural Studies (Penn. State Univ.), vol. 19, no. 1, April 1997, pp. 1ß37.
- Bennett, D. ‘Past Tense, Future Perfect: Free Time, Work and the Subject of Modernist and Postmodernist Aesthetics', UTS Review , vol. 2, no. 2, November 1996, pp. 10ß23.
- Bennett, D. ‘Time for Postmodernism: Subjectivity and Music in Reception Aesthetics’, and ‘Still Listening: Pluralising Responses’, in Warren Bebbington et al. (eds), Aflame With Music: 100 Years of Music at the University of Melbourne . Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 1996, pp. 59ß66 and 95ß97
- Bennett, D. ‘Racing Desire, Travelling Theory’, The Review of Education, Pedagogy, Cultural Studies (Penn. State Univ.), vol. 18, no. 3, 1996, pp. 267ß77.
- Bennett, D. ‘Mixed Feelings, Hybrid Theory’, UTS Review , vol. 2, no. 1, May 1996, pp. 206ß218.
- Bennett, D. ‘Postmodernism, Postcolonialism and 'the Rushdie Affair'’, Cogito , vol. 9, no. 1, Spring 1995, pp. 12ß25.
- Bennett, D. and T. Collits. ‘The Postcolonial Critic’, in Patrick Colm Hogan and Lalita Pandit, eds, Literary India: Comparative Studies in Aesthetics, Colonialism and Culture , Albany, N.Y.: State Univ. of New York Press, 1995, pp. 237ß54.
- Bennett, D. ‘PC Panic, the Press and the Academy,’ in Cultural Difference , special issue of Meanjin , 52: 3 (Spring 1993): 435-46.
- Bennett, D. (ed.), Cultural Studies: Pluralism and Theory . Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 1993.
- Bennett, D. and J. Stephens (ed), Postcolonialism , Special Issue of Arena , 96 (1991)
- Bennett, D. ‘Postmodernism and Vision: Ways of Seeing (at) the End of History’, in Postmodern Studies 3: History and Post-war Writing , ed. Theo D'haen and Hans Bertens (Amsterdam: Rodopi; Antwerpen: Restant, 1991), pp. 259-79.
- Bennett, D. and R. Benjamin eds., Rhetorics of History: Modernity and Postmodernity , Sydney: Art Association of Australia, 1990.
- Bennett, D. ‘Periodizing the Postmodern/Spatializing the Posthistorical’, in Rhetorics of History: Modernity and Postmodernity , ed. D. Bennett and R. Benjamin (Sydney: Art Association of Australia, 1990), pp. 40-55.
- Bennett, D. ‘Wrapping Up Postmodernism: The Subject of Consumption Versus the Subject of Cognition’, Textual Practice (Methuen/Routledge), 1: 3 (Winter 1987): 243-261. Rpt. in Postmodern Conditions, ed. A. Milner, P. Thomson and C. Worth (New York, London, Munich: Berg, 1990), pp. 15-37.
- Bennett, D. ‘Periodical Fragments and Organic Culture: Modernism, the Avant-Garde and the Little Magazine’, Contemporary Literature (U. of Wisconsin): 30: 4 (Winter 1989): 480-502. Rpt. as ‘transition : Modernism, the Avant-garde and the Little Magazine’ in Outside the Book: Contemporary Essays on Literary Periodicals, ed. D. Carter (Sydney: L. C. Publications, 1991), pp. 227-245.
- Bennett, D. (ed.), The Thousand Mile Stare , Melbourne: Centre for Contemporary Photography, 1988.
- Bennett, D. ‘Defining the American Difference: Cultural Nationalism and the Modernist Poetics of William Carlos Williams’, Southern Review , 20: 3 (November 1987): 271-81. Rpt. in Literature and National Cultures , ed. Brian Edwards (Melbourne: Centre for Studies in Literary Education, Deakin University, 1988), pp. 75-87.
- Bennett, D. ‘Parody, Postmodernism and the Politics of Reading’, Critical Quarterly (U. of Manchester), 27: 4 (Winter 1985): 27-43. Rpt. in Comic Relations: Studies in the Comic, Satire and Parody , ed. P. Petr, D. Roberts and P. Thomson (New York, Berne, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1985), pp. 193-210.