Lectures on Lacan Podcast

Our final episode on this often overlooked essay in Écrits begins by returning to the topic of speech. Because speech is always addressed, its meaning is always intersubjective — in keeping with the etymology of “communication,” which has nothing to do with unity but, instead, traces its origin to the Latin word for sharing . Classic 1950s Lacan. Which brings us back to another classic theme: trut...

“Variations on the Standard Treatment” is about life and death — but not as we usually conceive of these basic human experiences. Between early lives tinged with death and encounters to come with this absolute master, there are egos fixated on images of life and, thank goodness, analysts who know the benefits of playing dead (and, wherever possible, dumb as well). What egos guard against, analysts...

“Variations on the Standard Treatment” in 10 moves — that’s our wager in this week’s installment of Often Overlooked Essays in Écrits . I’m not sure how I arrived at this number, or whether these mini-lectures even attempt to adhere to it, but there are definitely four clear themes in this episode: * The psychoanalytic semantics initially discovered by Freud, in which free associations are never e...

The keyword in the title of this often overlooked essay in Écrits is “subject.” No surprise there! But notice how Lacan presents the subject at essay’s end: Why and how the subject functions “a joint” — and not just any joint, but a joint between “the consequences of language and the desire for knowledge” — are the primary questions in part two of our podcast "On the Subject Who is Finally in Ques...

For years, my go-to essay in Écrits was “The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis.” I studied it, taught it, and even structured part of The Chattering Mind atop it. And don’t get me wrong: I still think this essay is fire. If ever there was a manifesto of Lacan’s return to Freud, “The Function and the Field” is it. But whenever I’ve flipped to this iconic essay in Écrits ,...

Here’s the thing about often overlooked essays in Écrits — or, at least, here’s what I learned last fall, while recording these mini-lectures: Even Lacan’s less iconic essays are studded with arresting insights, and many of these insights, when examined closely, shed fresh light on key features of psychoanalytic theory and technique. “Beyond the ‘Reality Principle’” is no exception. So much so, th...

Our recent podcast on “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialect of Desire” began with a question: If you could recommend only one essay in Écrits, which would it be? Today, I’d like to ask a different question — and, with it, to take our podcast in a new direction: Which of Lacan’s essays have you often skipped over, in order to focus on more iconic pieces in Écrits ? First on my list has alw...

What was there before the Symbolic? Certainly not the Real. And what was life like before castration? Certainly not jouissance. So begins Part 7 in this series on “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious.” From here, it’s up, up, up the graph of desire in search of drive satisfaction and, thanks to some intrepid clinicians in the group, the possibility...

If you’ve ever wondered how egos, superegos, ideal egos, and ego ideals hang together, and how others big and small are involved, Part 6 of this lecture series on “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious” is the one for you. What begins in the lower-half of the graph of desire quickly heads elsewhere, however, extending from sadism and the law, to pron...

The original audience for these lectures on “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious” was a group of 70+ doctoral students in clinical psychology. Some had studied Lacan with me before, others were completely new to his work, and a few were predictably resistant at every step of the way. All of which made the conceptual centerpiece of Part 5 — prohibit...

Pre-oedipal triangles (starring: φ), properly oedipal squares (starring: -φ), a bit of set theory (don’t shoot the messenger, pls), and the first few graphs en route to that of desire — all begin to take shape in Part 4 of this series on “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious.” But also, with them, something else — something beyond demand, desire, an...

Need, demand, and desire — now we’re getting to it. Be on the lookout for humans as worms, turds as gifts, the meaning of unpierced ears, and insatiable demands for love, too. Or, at least, that’s what I remember from Part 3 of this lecture series on “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious.” Stay tuned for Part 4 tomorrow — and with more to follow soo...

I was planning to rollout this seven-part audio series on “The Subversion of the Subject” over the next few weeks, but I’m hearing from folks that this just ain’t fast enough. So here’s lecture two — and with more lectures to come soon! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lecturesonlacan.substack.com

If you could recommend only one essay in Écrits, which would it be? I’d probably pick “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious” — the same essay in which Lacan put the finishing touches on the graph of desire: Is “The Subversion of the Subject” a difficult essay? You bet it is. But it's also a remarkably comprehensive introduction to Lacanian psychoana...