DORA AND HER SISTERS: FEMALE TROUBLEMAKERS AND THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF DETACHMENT1

Abstract

AbstractThe cultural history of the ‘troublemaker’ (Dieter Thomä) seems to be dominated by male figures. Critically reflecting on this androcentric focus, the article examines the concept of ‘primary rejection’ as a specific form of ‘troublemaking’ through a re‐reading of Sigmund Freud's ‘Dora Case’. Dora's refusal to continue her treatment in Freud's psychoanalytic setting is not yet informed by a critical discourse against patriarchal normativity, but it has created a moment of irritation that leaves her case open to critical interpretation and retrospective framing. Drawing upon Sara Ahmed's analysis of the ‘cultural politics of emotions’ as well as on Judith Butler's concept of ‘passionate attachment’, this reading of Freud's case study reveals Dora's primary rejection as a gesture of detachment from normative, culturally constructed assignments of identity and desire. The troubling effect of this moment is not only evidenced in the rich body of feminist criticism within the psychoanalytic field and beyond that the Dora Case has produced, but is also mirrored in the primary rejections of female troublemakers in the fictional literature and culture of the twentieth century.