Lectures on Lacan Podcast

The concluding seminar explores Lacan’s node bow and the radical possibilities of writing. It contrasts speech and signification with drawing, figure, and artifice as ways to approach the Real beyond meaning. The discussion turns to the barred Other, impossible jouissance, God’s nonexistence, and the limits of symbolic authority, ending with a meditation on pondering against the signifier.

Welcome to the penultimate episode of our summer podcast series on SXXIII! This one’s titled “Fashioning the Real,” and it returns us to a familiar diagram — but with a certain late-Lacanian twist, of course!Our new series on Seminar XXIV also begins this Friday, September 11, so this is an especially momentous week. Join us as we trace the linguistic and theoretical leaps that Lacan made after his seminar on The Sinthome, from the Freudian Unbewusstes to the French l’une-bévue to the English unbewoops. 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

I didn’t realize what this episode was about until the very end, when I started wondering what you call a noun that's been transformed into a verb, but without adding any affixes. The technical, linguistic name for this couldn’t be better: “Zero Derivation.” 🤯 Head to our YouTube channel if you want to watch this one play out.And don’t forget to mark your calendar: the first live discussion in our fall series on Love Is the Failure of the Unbewoops (Seminar XXIV) is fast approaching! Access the complete schedule, checkout the readings, and secure your spot now! 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

Our fall series on Seminar XXIV begins in two weeks, and I couldn’t be more excited to explore this key text in Lacanian psychoanalysis with everyone! To give you a preview of where we’re heading, here’s a nine-minute sample from the opening lecture. I’m calling it “Corps Torique,” but don’t make too much of this fancy title. The lecture is fundamentally about stupidity — the particular kind of stupidity it takes to study Lacan. 😆Registration is still open, and our first live online discussion is fast approaching, so now’s the time to secure your spot. Link below to join this late-Lacan party! 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

“Wax & Feather” — that’s what we’re calling this one. You’ll see why as the episode unfolds. Again, note the pink dots in the diagram below, this batch in service to a closed trefoil knot (read: perversion). Head to our YouTube channel for the full video recording.And if this episode leaves you wanting more, our deep dive into Love is the Failure of the Unbewoops (Seminar XXIV) is fast approaching! Checkout the full week-by-week schedule, and secure your spot via our sliding-scale registration via the link below.🤘🏼 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

This episode is called “Suture & Splice,” on account of the pink dots in the borromean diagram below, which allow for the emergence of an open trefoil knot (read: topological structure of neurosis). Definitely worth viewing this episode on our YouTube channel, if only to see why in the f^%# these sutures and splices occur!Spots are also filling up in our upcoming series on Lacan’s Seminar XXIV (Love Is the Failure of the Unbewoops), where we’ll be asking what it means to practice psychoanalysis when the unconscious is understood as a pile of slips and blunders—just as Lacan began to conceive of it in SXXIII—rather than a hidden realm of repressed thought. Learn more and secure your sliding-scale registration today! 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

I love the title of this episode: “Anything, But Not That.” Head to our YouTube channel if you want to watch it unfold. See below for the fundamental diagram on which this episode relies. And if you like where things are trending in this podcast, be sure to register for our upcoming lecture and discussion series, which is the logical next step. From the knottings and unknottings of Seminar XXIII to the linguistic slips and blunders of Seminar XXIV, this one’s going to be blast. We start on September 11, and registration is offered on a sliding-scale basis so everyone can participate. 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

The second episode in our new podcast on SXXIII expands on the first. Hence the rather awkward title of this one: “Bags of Skin.” See below for some of the diagram work we did along the way; and head to our YouTube channel if you want to watch it unfold one pen stroke at a time.I’m also thrilled to report that the registration page for our next online lecture series is now live! Building directly on the concepts discussed in this podcast, we’ll be unpacking Lacan’s radical, late-stage reframing of the unconscious, in his wonderfully titled twenty-fourth seminar, Love is the Failure of the Unbewoops. You don’t want to miss this one! 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

A deep dive into Lacan's move from pairs to a decisive third and why counting three matters. A focus on the body's role in thought, from stubbed toes to the threshold of the real. Discussions of mirror-stage narcissism, the flatness of the mirror image, and the body as form, surface, envelope, and sphere. Teases of upcoming seminars and further lectures.

Welcome to the final episode in our summer series on SXXII! This one was a blast to record. It’s called “Enjoy Your Unconscious.” Access the text we used here. And head to our YouTube channel if you’d prefer to watch the video recording of this lecture. Stay tuned for more big news 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