Title: A Study of Zupančič’s Cultural Dualism: “The Death of God” from Lacan’s Perspective

Abstract: Alenka Zupančič is a distinguished contemporary Lacanian philosopher and Nietzsche scholar. According to Zupančič, under the influence of two “nihilisms,” Nietzsche’s assertion of “the Death of God” connotates twofold meanings: the eclipse of value integrated into “one” and then, the existence of two Gods: the Symbolic God as law and the Real God as exception. Two Gods function in the same way as Lacan’s “Master Discourse,” that is, the symbolic order is reintegrated through the change of the master signifier, and some unknowable law of the Real emerges simultaneously and secretly in the form of a symptom. Through the psychoanalytic deconstruction and reconstruction of the cognitive connotation, logical motivation and framework operation of Nietzsche’s “Death of God,” Zupančič completes the articulation between Lacan and Nietzsche at the cultural level.

Keywords: Zupančič, Nietzsche, Lacan, “The Death of God,” psychoanalysis

Author: Xiaodong Guo, Ph.D. Candidate, School of English Studies, Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, China.

DOI: 10.19967/j.cnki.flc.2025.04.014