Lectures on Lacan Podcast

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, I’ve often flitted past another fiery piece in the collection: “On the Subject Who is Finally in Question.” So this week, it’s all about latter! The first few minutes of this episode focus on mirages of completeness in common assumptions about pre-Oedipal life and clinical confusions about the end of analysis, suggesting that both fantasies of completeness are just that — fantasies. Then comes a classic but often misconstrued theme in Lacanian thought: the unconscious truth that psychoanalysis finds vs. the representational knowledge that philosophy seeks. Key phrase here: philosophy as truth’s detour into knowledge. Which brings this episode to another important theme: signs with referents vs. signifiers with . . . other signifiers. At stake in this versus is a properly Lacanian approach to language — not as a correspondent network of signs but, instead, as a differential system of signifiers. To illustrate this, we end in a series of velvet shirts — some soaked in blood, others ready for purchase, and all significantly repulsive.Stay tuned for more “On the Subject Who is Finally in Question” later this week! 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

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, that I wound up recording three mini-lectures on this essay, all of which are presented in this podcast episode. The first is titled “Free Association,” the second “Addressivity as Relationality,” and the third, for reasons I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I still do, “Apology Screamed.”Hence, the Lacanian riddle (of sorts) at the end of this episode: What is expressed but not understood, conceptualized but denied, and unconscious insofar as it’s expressed but conscious insofar as it’s repressed? 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 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 always been “On My Antecedents.” Until last fall, that is, when I decided to record a semester’s worth of mini-lectures on often overlooked essays in Écrits! Here’s the first recording in the series — on Lacan’s antecedents, of course! Stay tuned for more recordings on more essays in the coming weeks! 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

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 of yet another rung in the graph’s ladder, where the matheme of the drive might give way to that of love. Part 7 also includes a crash course on psychosis, derived in part from the 31-part series on Seminar III available on our Substack, but with an added emphasis on the clinical and conceptual bookend to Lacan’s early work on the topic: The Sinthome (Seminar XXIII). Be on the lookout for auto-cannibalism, linguistic determinism, the etymological unconscious, why Jesus was a masochist, and — by far my favorite moment in this recording — an exasperated student blurting out, apparently believing their mic was turned off, “he doesn’t take any breaks!” To which your trusty sadist replies, “there will be no breaks.” 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’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 pronouns vs. proper names, to Lacanian theories of love, to the discourse and desire of the analyst, to one of the reasons why there’s no Other of the Other, to our bone-deep longing — yours and mine alike — for non-maladaptive experiences of jouissance. If you’re also into cops, pencils, tattoos, plastic bags, bodies without organs, uteromorphic creation myths, Badiou’s math, and late-capitalist pursuits of pleasure . . . well . . . here you go. 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 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 — prohibition, the law, and the paternal function — especially fun to discuss. The clinical structure of perversion figures largely here, with sadism and masochism taking center stage. Followed by logics the American Western, the allure of overeating / workout cycles, and a hint at why the best father is a dead one. Then along comes phallic jouissance and, with it, a wide-ranging critique of “sexual enjoyment at the level of the swimsuit zone,” with help from subaltern theory, animal philosophy, Fanon’s case studies, even Freud himself. 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

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, and fantasy alike. Or, as we strike upon it here, “Fuck what you want, tell me what you did.” And with this, two fields of enjoyment come into view: one transgressive and thus beholden to the law (read: desire), and another wending its own way through life as just that (read: the drive). 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

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 soon thereafter. 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 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 psychoanalysis.So when Pacifica Graduate Institute asked me to introduce their clinical psychology doctoral students to Lacanian psychoanalysis, I couldn’t resist. Here’s the opening lecture — the first of seven I delivered last summer. Stay tuned for more in the coming days! 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