Abstract:In The Writing of the Disaster, Maurice Blanchot includes a brief discussion of the Narcissus myth, implicitly inviting us to ask, as Claire Nouvet notes, "what is 'disastrous' in Narcissus's story." Translating this question into a postcolonial context, this essay argues that what is "disastrous" in colonial narcissism is the profound disturbance the story reveals in Narcissus's capacity to relate to others: a disturbance which imprisons Narcissus in a "crippling solipsism." In seeking to sow the seeds for an effective response, the paper draws on contemporary psychoanalytic theories of narcissism to propose that Narcissus's "grandiose" disavowal of relationality is a mere smokescreen to cover up his profound vulnerability and fear: a fear of the other which originates in relational trauma. Making reference to the settler colonial context, I argue that this traumatic core of the narcissistic condition has remained largely occluded because trauma studies' dominant event-based model of trauma is ill-equipped to recognise colonialism's relational trauma. To break with colonial narcissism's toxic legacy, I therefore propose, a relational trauma theory—such as it is developed in the work of D. W. Winnicott and Masud Khan—is needed.

中文翻译：

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殖民自恋的灾难

摘要：在《灾难的写作》中，莫里斯·布朗肖对水仙神话进行了简短的讨论，含蓄地邀请我们发问，正如克莱尔·努维 (Claire Nouvet) 所说，“水仙故事中的‘灾难性’是什么？” 将这个问题转化为后殖民背景，本文认为殖民自恋中的“灾难性”是故事揭示了纳西索斯与他人交往能力的深刻干扰：这种干扰将纳西索斯囚禁在“严重的唯我论”中。为了播下有效回应的种子，这篇论文借鉴了当代自恋的精神分析理论，提出纳西索斯对关系性的“宏大”否认只是掩盖他深刻脆弱和恐惧的烟幕：源于关系创伤的对他人的恐惧。参考定居者的殖民背景，我认为自恋状况的这种创伤核心在很大程度上仍然被封闭，因为创伤研究的主要基于事件的创伤模型不足以识别殖民主义的关系创伤。因此，为了摆脱殖民自恋的有毒遗产，我建议需要一种关系创伤理论——比如在 DW Winnicott 和 Masud Khan 的工作中发展起来的——是必要的。