The uncanny is the psychological
experience of something as strangely familiar, rather than simply
mysterious. It may describe incidents where a familiar thing or event is
encountered in an unsettling, eerie, or taboo context.
The concept of the uncanny was perhaps first fixed by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay Das Unheimliche, which explores the eeriness of dolls and waxworks. For Freud, the uncanny locates the strangeness in the ordinary. Expanding on the idea, psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan wrote that the uncanny places us "in the field where we do not know how to distinguish bad and good, pleasure from displeasure", resulting in an irreducible anxiety that gestures to the Real. The concept has since been taken up by a variety of subsequent thinkers and theorists such as Roboticist Masahiro Mori's "uncanny valley" hypothesis and Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection.
This concept is closely related to Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection, where one reacts adversely to something forcefully cast out of the symbolic order. Abjection can be uncanny in that the observer can recognize something within the abject, possibly of what it was before it was 'cast out', yet be repulsed by what it is that caused it to be cast out to begin with. Kristeva lays special emphasis on the uncanny return of the past abject with relation to the 'uncanny stranger'.
Sadeq Rahimi has noted a common relationship between the uncanny and direct or metaphorical visual references, which he explains in terms of basic processes of ego development, specifically as developed by Lacan's theory of the mirror stage. Rahimi presents a wide range of evidence from various contexts to demonstrate how uncanny experiences are typically associated with themes and metaphors of vision, blindness, mirrors and other optical tropes. He also presents historical evidence showing strong presence of ocular and specular themes and associations in the literary and psychological tradition out of which the notion of 'the uncanny' emerged. According to Rahimi, instances of the uncanny like doppelgängers, ghosts, déjà vu, alter egos, self-alienations and split personhoods, phantoms, twins, living dolls, etc. share two important features: that they are closely tied with visual tropes, and that they are variations on the theme of doubling of the ego.
Roboticist Masahiro Mori's "uncanny valley" hypothesis (describing human reactions to human-like robots) describes the gap between familiar living people and their also familiar inanimate representations, such as statues or pictures. The things in the valley are between these two poles of common phenomena. The hypothesis is deeply indebted to Jentsch and Freud's observations.
The concept of the uncanny was perhaps first fixed by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay Das Unheimliche, which explores the eeriness of dolls and waxworks. For Freud, the uncanny locates the strangeness in the ordinary. Expanding on the idea, psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan wrote that the uncanny places us "in the field where we do not know how to distinguish bad and good, pleasure from displeasure", resulting in an irreducible anxiety that gestures to the Real. The concept has since been taken up by a variety of subsequent thinkers and theorists such as Roboticist Masahiro Mori's "uncanny valley" hypothesis and Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection.
History of Studying the
Concept of Uncanny
The German Idealism of F.W.J. Schelling, the writing of
Friedrich Nietzche touched on the uncanny as did the psychological writings of
Ernst Jentsch and a 1919 essay on “The Uncanny” by Sigmund Freud.
Related Theories
This concept is closely related to Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection, where one reacts adversely to something forcefully cast out of the symbolic order. Abjection can be uncanny in that the observer can recognize something within the abject, possibly of what it was before it was 'cast out', yet be repulsed by what it is that caused it to be cast out to begin with. Kristeva lays special emphasis on the uncanny return of the past abject with relation to the 'uncanny stranger'.
Sadeq Rahimi has noted a common relationship between the uncanny and direct or metaphorical visual references, which he explains in terms of basic processes of ego development, specifically as developed by Lacan's theory of the mirror stage. Rahimi presents a wide range of evidence from various contexts to demonstrate how uncanny experiences are typically associated with themes and metaphors of vision, blindness, mirrors and other optical tropes. He also presents historical evidence showing strong presence of ocular and specular themes and associations in the literary and psychological tradition out of which the notion of 'the uncanny' emerged. According to Rahimi, instances of the uncanny like doppelgängers, ghosts, déjà vu, alter egos, self-alienations and split personhoods, phantoms, twins, living dolls, etc. share two important features: that they are closely tied with visual tropes, and that they are variations on the theme of doubling of the ego.
Roboticist Masahiro Mori's "uncanny valley" hypothesis (describing human reactions to human-like robots) describes the gap between familiar living people and their also familiar inanimate representations, such as statues or pictures. The things in the valley are between these two poles of common phenomena. The hypothesis is deeply indebted to Jentsch and Freud's observations.
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