Jessica Benjamin is an American feminist psychoanalyst, who identifies herself with the relational perspective in psychoanalysis, also called ‘object relations theory’.

Benjamin’s concept of ‘intersubjectivity’ is a non-hierarchical, non-heteronormative and non-essentialist view of gendered and sexualized subjectivity. The notion revisions Freudian models of subject development and challenges traditional, patriarchal conceptions of the psyche and self-other relations. It first emerged in a chapter entitled ‘Woman’s Desire’ in The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and the Problem of Domination (1988), which constitutes Benjamin’s attempt to, psychoanalytically, analyse women’s desires and subjectivities, by linking them to the formation of gendered identities.

In the two subsequent books, Like Subjects, Love Objects: Essays on Recognition, Identification and Difference (1995) and Shadow of the Other: Intersubjectivity and Gender in Psychoanalysis (1997), Benjamin also employs the concept to problematize the distinctions between femininity and masculinity, and to challenge heteronormativity and essentialism.

Ana Makuc (1982) is a translator, linguist, researcher, poet and activist, living and working in Ljubljana. She completed her BA in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory, and English Language and Literature (Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), and her PhD in Gender and Women’s Studies (Lancaster University, Great Britain). Her poetry, literary translations, and scientific articles in the area of feminist literary criticism have been published in such journals as Apokalipsa, Jezik in slovstvo, Mentor, as well as book chapters by Inter-Disciplinary.Net.

In the English language.

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