Architecture of the unconscious

Finally, when Freud unveiled the predominant role of the unconscious in psychic processes, it turned out that our ego does not even rule its own house. - Slavoj Žižek, How to Read LacanGet up off the pavement, brush the dirt up off my psyche. - rapper Earl Sweatshirt, "Chum" In the KitchenPsychoanalysis is known primarily for its preoccupation with the "truth" that "speaks." Following the critical tradition pioneered by Lacan and now Žižek, I would instead like to shift our attention to the "site[s]" where these pivotal experiments in truth take place - the environments we transform and the objects we fashion as we "learn to live with" the social plight we have inherited. Simply put, the aim of this paper is to explore the architecture of the unconscious. To develop this argument, I draw upon an array of genres and cultural artifacts, including personal memoir, cartoons, and hip hop lyricism. ¹ This description of cooking is likewise a pun referring to the symbol for Arm & Hammer baking soda - a crucial ingredient for transforming powder cocaine into crack. For annotations on this lyric, see http://rap.genius.com/Los-dont-get-in-my-way-lyrics.