I Can't Get No Satisfaction: Giacomo Leopardi's Theory of Infinite Desire

A lecture by
Alessandro Carrera, University of Houston

Introduced by Maria Luisa Ardizzone, NYU

In the light of today's debates about the nature of pleasure, desire, happiness, and enjoyment, Giacomo Leopardi's observations on pleasure and desire strike us as both Romantic and post-Romantic - and uncannily up-to-date with 20th century psychoanalysis and contemporary theory. In his absolute certainty that the only desire is infinite desire and that no object, no goal, no accomplishment will ever bring satisfaction, Leopardi's theory of pleasure is the missing link between the Enlightenment debates about happiness, Freud's death drive, Lacan's enjoyment, and Deleuze's and Guattari's notion of productive desire.

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò
New York University
October 18, 2017

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