Reaffirming the value of the image and its social implications: Shlain and Lacan

Abstract

This article focuses on the issue of the reaffirmation of the value of the image from the perspectives of Shlain's startling uncovering of a connection between the historical rise of alphabet literacy and, concomitantly, patriarchy, on the one hand, the place of images which, at first blush, seems to indicate a negative evaluation – in poststructuralist, Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytical theory of the subject, on the other. Both perspectives give rise to a number of questions, which I shall explore briefly.