Here is a draft of that cover letter

Dr. Cheree Carlson, Editor
Western Journal of Communication
c/o Department of Communication
Hugh Downs School of Communication
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-1205
March 13, 2006
Dear Dr. Carlson,
Enclosed are five copies of my manuscript, re-titled "Hystericizing Huey: A Lacanian
Reading of a Southern Demagogue" (MS#: 05-106), which I am resubmitting for review
at your invitation. Per your and the reviewers' suggestions, I have re-titled, reframed, and
significantly revised the essay to better reflect its theoretical and critical contribution:
understanding the appeal of demagoguery.
Because my revisions were so extensive, detailing every change would be tiresome. I
would like to response to your and the reviewers' major suggestions, however, and I turn
to those seriatim.
Your Suggestions for Revision
1. You suggest that framing the essay as establishing a psychoanalytic mode of
criticism is simply too ambitious for this essay, and to leave such a "grand
purpose" behind in favor of a stand-alone essay on demagoguery. In agreement
with reviewer Z, you suggest it would be better to frame the discussion as
characteristically Lacanian.
With much relief I agree with this suggestion; the gestures to "a method" were
made in response to the suggestion of a previous reviewer another journal. I have
removed this "defensive" language and maintained a focus on demagoguery and
desire throughout.
2. You stress the expense of reprinting images and ask me to consider cutting those
that are not essential. You also ask for information about copyright clearances.
I have cut figure 1 (originally of the capital) and figure 5 (the "love triangle"), and
moved figure 6 to the front of the essay. As for copyright, I'm pleased to report
that I took the photographs myself for the express purpose of the essay, and so

eprinting them should not be an issue (if accepted for publication, I'm uncertain
if they will need to be captioned with credits).
Reviewer X's Suggestion
3. The first objection reviewer X voices is at the level of method: the theoretical
approach taken uses the case study of Long, not so much to illuminate a
historically specific discourse as much as further prop the theory. In other words,
I see what I want to see because my reading prefigures the discourse with
psychoanalytic categories.
This is an important and valuable insight that, I regret, no revision could
overcome without substantially extending the discussion. Within the overall
context of the reviewer's remarks, the object seems rooted in a particular
methodological (and ideological) commitment: that one approaches texts or
discourse without preconceived notions or categories, and then, on the basis of
"close reading" or working through the intricacies of the discourse, selects that
theoretical perspective that the discourse seems to recommend (I recall this is
sometimes referred to as the "organic" approach to criticism).
Although I was trained in this approach, this essay comes at discourse from a sort
of "mid-level" theoretical approach akin to genre criticism (and therefore suffers
similar objections). In my view, Lacanian categories have more to do with
Burke's understanding of "form" than terministic screens: on the basis of clinical
experience psychoanalysts have seen a number of "patterns" or things occurring
among patients that yield pleasure. From this empirical basis, a number of
psychical structures were defined and discerned and amended over time. The
structures of neurosis, like that of, say, a genre, seem to evince a repeated
movement (or seeming causation)—but the particularities of this movement, as
well as their unique form of expression, differ from one individual or discourse
from the next. So, to borrow Edwin Black's terms, "The [psychoanalytic critic's]
training and experience instruct him in where to look, but not in what to see." My
decision to use Lacanian concepts to understand Long's appeal came after I saw
him deliver a speech on a video documentary; I immediately thought he was
"hysterical," and originally my analysis pursed that idea. After studying Long, I
changed my mind to the opposing pole: in this sense my familiarity with
psychoanalysis taught me where to look, just not what I was going to see.
In short: this objection is the objection that many psychoanalytic approaches to
rhetorical phenomena have and will likely meet. It is my hope that by abandoning
the specification of "method" and focusing, instead, on how the notion of desire
better explains the appeal of demagogic rhetoric, I can persuade reviewer X to "go
along for the ride" even if she disagrees with my failure to let the text dictate the
method. Indeed, a psychoanalytic approach to texts offers an alternative to the
"organic" approach, while not abandoning the necessity of historical specificity
and context.

4. A related objection that reviewer X voices is that, insofar psychoanalysis is
primarily a clinical technique aimed at managing mental illness, it is
inappropriate to transfer its insights into non-clinical settings (e.g., cultural
readings)—at the very least, because it is unfair to the real, historical Huey Long.
Although I understand the basis of this objection and recognize why some readers
would agree with it, I attempt to respond in the essay by stressing my focus is on
the figure of Long in his discourse, and in texts about his discourse and his figure.
In other words, my analysis is premised on a distinction between the real,
biological Long (e.g., that person who would submit to analysis), and his
representation. No one has access to the "real" Long. Perhaps what recommends
a Lacanian approach, above others, is that it makes discourse and the symbolic
prior to the subject (and in this sense, Long as a figure is an effect of discourse).
5. Finally, the reviewer calls for more "evidence" in support of the argument that
demagogic rhetoric evinces the obsessive/hysteric dialectic.
To this end I have added ____ and blank _____ to pp. etc.
Reviewer Z's Suggestions
6. Reviewer Z first recommends abandoning the larger project of a psychoanalytic
criticism in favor of a sustained focus on demagogic rhetoric. As a corollary, she
also suggests that the attempt to explain contemporary manifestations of
demagoguery (e.g., Bush and Clinton) be abandoned, since there is simply no
room for it.
7. Second, this reviewer suggests that the argument needs to be brought into sharper
focus: insofar as most rhetorical acts stimulate the desiring of the audience, what
is particularly unique about demagogic rhetoric?
8. Third, the reviewer recommends that the "tortured" explication of need, demand,
and desire (pp. ) be replaced with Joan Copjec's elaboration in Read My Desire:
Lacan Against the Historicists.
9. Fourth—and closely related to the previous objection—the reviewer suggests that
the discussion of desire seems to abandon its "object-less" movement in Lacan's
work, which stresses that desire is its own end (not to be satisfied). She disagrees
therefore with my assertion that the audience-as-hysteric "never gets what it
wants" because what it wants is "nothing final, certain, sure."
I agree with this point and have revised accordingly. On pp. I remark, again, the
important role of the ruse here, the mistake that a love object is what the audience
things that it wants when, in fact, the

10. Reviewer Z urges that I incorporate the work of James McDaniel and others that
help to lend support to the argument that demagogues are successful and
persuasive only to the extent that audiences derive pleasure from never getting
what they are promised.
To this end I have ___.
11. The reviewer says she was perplexed by my suggestion that Louisianian's gave
Huey a monument that represented what he was to them. She suggests, rather,
that they gave themselves "a substitute in the face of the loss of the big Other!"
I agree with this observation and have revised my remarks to reflect this reading.
I think the confusion concerns my adoption of the perspective of the hysteric (an
empathetic gesture).
12. The final major revision reviewer Z recommends concerns the collapse of the
symbolic and the rhetorical.
I have taken care in this re-writing to emphasize the distinction (strictly speaking,
for Lacan the domain of the rhetorical is tropology, understood as a logic of
movement, while the Symbolic is an order or register).
12. Finally, the reviewer recommends that (a) I remove claims that posture or that
are unsubstantiated claims be removed; (b) I indicate a familiarity with the
debate concerning whether Lacan did or did not jettison a biological basis for
understanding sexuation, as not doing so announces a lamentable ignorance; (c) I
revisit Fink's discussion of obsession on p. 20 and eliminate the "love triangle"
figure; and (d) sink the discussion of the phallus into the endnotes, as it "bogs
down the flow of analysis."
All of these suggestions were heeded and corrected in the text.
_________________________
As you can see, I took each of the reviewer's comments to heart and revised and re-wrote
the essay in light of them. Although I am doubtful that reviewer X can be swayed to
accept psychoanalytic views, my hope is that these extensive revisions, keyed largely to
the suggestions of reviewer Z, will recommend the essay has something to say that is new
or that has not been addressed before. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Joshua Gunn
Assistant Professor
University of Texas at Austin

Hystericizing Huey: A Lacanian Reading of a Southern Demagogue
Joshua Gunn
Department of Communication Studies
University of Texas at Austin
One University Station A1105
Austin, TX 78712
email: slewfoot@mail.utexas.edu
phone: 512-471-3933
MS HISTORY: An earlier version of this paper was delivered at the 2004 Annual
Meeting of the Southern States Communication Association in Birmingham, Alabama.
AUTHOR NOTE: To be written when and if this thing is ever accepted for publication.