With the winter holidays fast approaching, and perhaps some angsty family dynamics as well, it seems like a particularly good time to launch our new podcast series on . . . a n x i e t y . As many of you know, Lectures on Lacan began at the behest of an intrepid group of clinical psychology doctoral students, all of whom attended my summer 2021 seminar on “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire” at Pacifica Graduate Institute — the same doctoral seminar which yielded the first...
Nov 21, 2022•1 hr 26 min
This episode on “Science and Truth” brings us to the end of Écrits . And in bringing us to the end of Écrits , it also offers a convenient stopping point (or maybe just a pausing place) for our podcast series on often overlooked essays in the volume — just in time, coincidentally enough, for the start of our new lecture series on The Logic of Fantasy (Seminar XIV) ! This episode on “Science and Truth” also gives us a chance to summarize some of Lacan’s key thoughts on two important themes, both ...
Nov 01, 2022•45 min
This episode begins with Lacan’s account of “the cut brought about by the heteronomy of the symbolic” and ends by explaining his frequent claim that “the true father — that is, the symbolic father — is the dead father.” If you’ve ever wondered what, exactly, Lacan means by “the symbolic,” this episode’s for you. First up in the episode: imaginary triangles comprised of the child (read: fragmented body), the primary caregiver (read: maternal function), and the imaginary object (read: phallus). Ou...
Oct 25, 2022•46 min
Good Lacanians, like good Hegelians, often enjoy counting. Odd-numbered counts tend to be the most productive. Hence, today’s triangulated podcast episode, which features Lacan’s response to Hyppolite’s commentary on Freud’s little 1925 essay on “Negation.” Three essays in one episode — hang on, y’all! But it’s a single even number — 4 — that often keeps Hegelian and Lacanian thought moving, so be on the lookout for a quadrangle of terms in today’s episode: affirmation ( Bejahung ), negation ( V...
Oct 18, 2022•41 min
Reading Écrits is like riding a bike — not because you never forget how (on the contrary!) but because different essays in the volume often require different intellectual gears. Some essays, like those featured in our concluding session on the drive , have to be read slowly, in the lowest conceptual gears we’ve got. While other essays, like those covered in this week’s podcast, allow for much quicker reading. So it’s no surprise that our second often overlooked essay of the week, “Introduction t...
Oct 13, 2022•18 min
Here’s a little episode on a little essay in Écrits with lots of iconic themes strung throughout: Truth, language, and the unconscious, triangulated at the level of the signifier, and thus the subject as well… How need conditions demand, and vice versa, setting the stage for castration… What, exactly, the non -of-the-father prohibits… Dreams of wholeness, nightmares of being torn apart… And, of course, why we’re more like worms than horses. Best of all in this episode, though, is our collaborati...
Oct 10, 2022•10 min
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: truth vs. knowledge. This time, however, the operative word is ignorance . According to Lacan, ignorance...
Oct 03, 2022•24 min
“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 help them confront, suggesting that psychoanalysis is not just about learning how to die, but also,...
Sep 30, 2022•30 min
“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 exactly “free” because parapraxes aren’t just symptoms of underlying clinical structures but also sig...
Sep 26, 2022•41 min
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 Question." Along the way, we define subjects as symptoms as signifiers apart from signs and representati...
Sep 23, 2022•25 min
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 Que...
Sep 19, 2022•27 min
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 podcas...
Sep 15, 2022•30 min
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 wort...
Sep 12, 2022•13 min
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...
Sep 06, 2022•52 min
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 ...
Sep 02, 2022•1 hr 3 min
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 perve...
Aug 29, 2022•54 min
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...
Aug 23, 2022•59 min
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 ...
Aug 22, 2022•57 min
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...
Aug 16, 2022•1 hr 37 min
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 ...
Aug 15, 2022•1 hr 34 min
