ANTONIO VIEGO: Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2007.

It would behard to dispute the claim that much of Latino Studies and its antecedentdisciplines of Chicano and Puerto Rican Studies have emerged as coordinatedresponses to the collective trauma resulting from the violence of loss anddispossession. Be it the territorial, material, social, and politicaldispossession and displacement that follows from colonial conquest or thelinguistic, spiritual, or cultural loss that was coerced by legal andextra-legal means in the centuries following contact with Europeans, a profoundsense of fragmentation and alienation permeates the Latino world of theAmericas. This shared experience has been influential in shaping much of thediscursive response that constitutes Latino Studies. An underlying premise ofChicano-Puerto Rican-Latino studies is that discursive practices within andoutside of universities are a site of resistance and can play an important rolein re-uniting fragmented communities and individuals.

Almost from their inception asdisciplines four decades ago, scholars within the rubric of Latino studies havedebated about the validity of applying Western theories, such as Marxism,psychoanalysis, and post-structuralism to their situation. Meta-theorists ofthe discipline would observe that though the question has never been resolved,a healthy skepticism has been nurtured even as engagement with western theoryhas continued alongside the development of culturally specific concepts andterminology across academic disciplines.

In DeadSubjects: Towards a Politics of Loss in Latino Studies, Antonio Viego argues that a clearerunderstanding of the nuances and complexities of loss will enable historicallysituated ethnic-racialized subjects to better conceptualize and shape socialand legal redress to systems of inequity that have facilitated loss and traumaon a grand scale. If Viego's argument seems grounded in psychology, it is no coincidence. His insightful study is premised onthe notion that Lacanian theory is extraordinarily valuable for understanding collectivetrauma and loss. Viego's embrace of Lacan is a critical response to the limitsof Freudian psychoanalysis for understanding not only the psychology but alsothe politics of loss. To help readers understand the limits of Freud, Viegoreminds us that the emergence of psychoanalysis in the United Stateswas aligned with questions of national identity that were precipitated by themass immigration occurring in the early 20^th century. As a result,he asserts, there was a "drive for a unified and purified body politic" (p.34).

Tracing thework of historians of psychoanalytical thought in the U.S., Viegoillustrates how the notion of a "divided heritage" and "dualistic nationalidentity" began to emerge as a way to explain social friction and racialtension. In the resulting version of psychoanalysis, difference became aproblem and social and cultural assimilation became the solution to re-unitethe fragmented subject. The result was that Freudian psychoanalysis in the U.S. tended topromote the ego as rigid and fixed in its effort to produce a subject that wasknowable and transparent, therefore also controllable. Such a proposition, as HomiBhabba has argued, has its parallels in colonial discourse. Viego pointedlyargues that this premise of colonial discourse and Freudian psychoanalysis cometogether in a dangerous way because "Racism depends on a certainrepresentational capture of the ethno-racialized subject rendered...potentiallywhole and unified in order to manage this subject more masterfully indiscourse" (p. 48).

Whilenecessarily vigilant in his critique of Freudian psychoanalytic theory, Viego'sprimary interest is to encourage scholars of Latino studies to engage Lacaniantheory in their understanding of Latino subjectivity. Following the oft-madeargument that Lacanian theory is a species of queer theory, Viego argues thatit is also a "radical anti-racist theory" that functions to deepen and extendits anti-heteronormative charge (p. 48). In Viego's words, "Latino queers ethnicity and race" (p.21). In explaining why Lacan is not more popular among scholars of criticalrace and ethnicity knowledge projects, Viego asserts that Lacanian theory isnot endorsed because "understanding the precipitation of subjectivity as aneffect of language seems, among other things, ahistorical, apolitical,universalizing, and antihumanist" (p. 49).

To make hiscase, the first two chapters of DeadSubjects are devoted to mapping out the historical and theoretical pitfallsof the Freudian and Lacanian schools of psychoanalysis. In the next twochapters Viego shows how Lacanian theory and Latino studies might interface. Itis here that Viego clearly demarcates where Lacan departs from Freud andfollows this by identifying the overlap between psychoanalytical theory, socialpsychology, rights discourse, and critical race and ethnicity theory (p. 78).Viego's argument is most forceful when illustrating how psychoanalyticalassumptions have shaped Latino subjectivity in rights discourse. He argues: "wehave to attend closely to how we have been instantiated in the law asparticularly types of psychological subjects since the extension of rightsrequired that a psychological portraiture be created of ethnic-racializedsubjects as psychological subjects experiencing social injury" (p. 100). Whatis lost in succumbing to such a profile, however, is the multi-valent nature ofhuman subjectivity that is constantly evolving and adapting to a dynamic world.The result is a static or "dead, subject." Borrowing from Foucault, Viegoargues that we need to liberate ourselves "from the kinds of psychologicalsubjectivities codified by the state and its legal apparatus" (p. 101).

The finalthree chapters of Dead Subjects arereserved for demonstrating how a Lacanian psychoanalytic framework mightprecipitate new subjectivities. Applying his astute insights in aninter-disciplinary approach to Latino history, literature, cultural practices,and theory, as well as ethnic studies in general, Viego illustrates how somesuch a perspective is already manifest in the destabilizing artistic andintellectual practices of nepantlismo, Spanglish, and rasquachismo.

Viego'swriting is lucid and crisp though the subject matter is theoretically dense. Tohis credit, he is passionate, personable, and playful in communicating theurgency to shift away from a perspective that relies on assumptions that may beunintentionally forestalling a politics of liberation. But he is also realisticin suggesting that such a paradigm shift may usher in an unknowable future inwhich Latino identity as we know it may no longer exist. Such an argument is ascompelling as it is disquieting.

LouisMendoza                                                                University of Minnesota,Twin Cities