The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XX: Encore

Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller
Translated with Notes by Bruce Fink

A startling psycholinguistic exploration of the boundaries of love and knowledge.

Often controversial, always inspired, Jacques Lacan here weighs theories of the relationship between the desire for love and the attainment of knowledge from such thinkers as Aristotle, Marx, and Freud. He leads us through mathematics, philosophy, religion, and, naturally, psychoanalysis into an entirely new way of interpreting the two most fundamental human drives. Long anticipated by English-speaking readers, this annotated translation presents Lacan's most sophisticated work on love and desire.

In his famous seminar on ethics, Jacques Lacan uses this question as his departure point for a re-examination of Freud's work and the experience of psychoanalysis in relation to ethics. Delving into the psychoanalyst's inevitable involvement with ethical questions, Lacan clarifies many of his key concepts. During the seminar he discusses the problem of sublimation, the paradox of jouissance, the essence of tragedy, and the tragic dimension of analytical experience. One of the most influential French intellectuals of this century, Lacan is seen here at the height of his powers.

During the third year of his famous seminar, Jacques Lacan gives a concise definition of psychoanalysis: 'Psychoanalysis should be the science of language inhabited by the subject. From the Freudian point of view man is the subject captured and tortured by language.' Since psychosis is a special but emblematic case of language entrapment, Lacan devotes much of this year to grappling with distinctions between the neuroses and the psychoses. As he compared the two, relationships, symmetries, and contrasts emerge that enable him to erect a structure for psychosis. Freud's famous case of Daniel Paul Schreber is central to Lacan's analysis. In demonstrating the many ways that the psychotic is `inhabited, possessed by language', Lacan draws upon Schreber's own account of his psychosis and upon Freud's notes on this 'case of paranoia'. The analysis of language is both fascinating and enlightening.

The author's writings, and especially the seminars for which he has become famous, have provoked intense controversies in French analytic circles, requiring as they do a radical reappraisal of the legacy bequeathed by Freud. This volume is based on a year's seminar, which is of particular importance because he was addressing a larger, less speci

"Published in association with the Journal for Lacanian Studies (JLS), the Ex-tensions series of short books aims to address "extant tensions" affecting the broad field of Lacanian psychoanalysis, whether they originate within its own boundaries or outside its direct sphere of influence. The 6rst of these books is by the renowned Lacanian Jacques-Aloin Miller. On Wednesday 8 October 2003, the French National Assembly passed a bill intended to regulate, for the 6rst time, the practice of psychotherapy in France. Moved by Bernard Accoyer, the purpose of the legislation was to restrict the practice of psychotherapy to psychiatrists and clinical psychologists; it would effectively no longer be legal for any other practitioners, including psycho- analysts, to practice in the sphere of mental health. "

During the third year of his famous seminar, Jacques Lacan gives a concise definition of psychoanalysis: "Psychoanalysis should be the science of language inhabited by the subject. From the Freudian point of view man is the subject captured and tortured by language". Since psychosis is a special but emblematic case of language entrapment, Lacan devotes much of this year to grappling with distinctions between the neuroses and the psychoses. As he compared the two, relationships, symmetries, and contrasts emerge that enable him to erect a structure for psychosis. Freud's famous case of Daniel Paul Schreber is central to Lacan's analysis. In demonstrating the many ways that the psychotic is "inhabited, possessed by language", Lacan draws upon Schreber's own account of his psychosis and upon Freud's notes on this "case of paranoia". He offers an analysis of language that is both fascinating and enlightening.

In his famous seminar on ethics, Jacques Lacan uses this question as his departure point for a re-examination of Freud's work and the experience of psychoanalysis in relation to ethics. Delving into the psychoanalyst's inevitable involvement with ethical questions, Lacan clarifies many of his key concepts. During the seminar he discusses the problem of sublimation, the paradox of jouissance, the essence of tragedy, and the tragic dimension of analytical experience. One of the most influential French intellectuals of this century, Lacan is seen here at the height of his powers.

Jacques Lacan is widely recognized as a key figure in the history of psychoanalysis and one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th Century. In Anxiety, now available for the first time in English, he explores the nature of anxiety, suggesting that it is not nostalgia for the object that causes anxiety but rather its imminence. In what was to be the last of his year-long seminars at Saint-Anne hospital, Lacan's 1962-63 lessons form the keystone to this classic phase of his teaching. Here we meet for the first time the notorious a in its oral, anal, scopic and vociferated guises, alongside Lacan’s exploration of the question of the 'analyst's desire'. Arriving at these concepts from a multitude of angles, Lacan leads his audience with great care through a range of recurring themes such as anxiety between jouissance and desire, counter-transference and interpretation, and the fantasy and its frame. This important volume, which forms Book X of The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, will be of great interest to students and practitioners of psychoanalysis and to students and scholars throughout the humanities and social sciences, from literature and critical theory to sociology, psychology and gender studies.

Since its inception, Lacanian psychoanalysis has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for inducing acrimonious conflicts and facilitating tumultuous struggles between its own constituency and other areas of inquiry, as well as within its own ranks and among its most loyal adherents. Although Lacanianism has spread like wildfire across the academic disciplines, Lacan s intellectual legacy has maintained a highly unstable equilibrium at the theoretical, clinical and institutional levels of its modus operandi. At the same time, Lacanians have often been at the forefront in addressing the socio-political and cultural tensions that pervade our contemporary living conditions and they have often taken the lead in responding to the pressures of our market economy to control and streamline the psychoanalytic profession. Published in association with the Journal for Lacanian Studies (JLS), this is the first title in a new series that addresses the tensions of Lacanian psychoanalysis. This volume is by the renowned Lacanian Jacques-Alain Miller. On Wednesday 8 October 2003 the French National Assembly passed a bill intended to regulate, for the first time, the practice of psychotherapy in France. Moved by Bernard Accoyer, the purpose of the legislation was to restrict the practice of psychotherapy to psychiatrists and clinical psychologists; it would effectively no longer be legal for any other practitioners, including psychoanalysts, to practice in the sphere of mental health. This volume consists of Jacques-Alain Miller s letter to Bernard Accoyer, opposing the bill. Contributions from Bernard Burgoyne and Russell Grigg are also included, examining the implications of such a bill in France and elsewhere."

The author's writings, and especially the seminars for which he has become famous, have provoked intense controversies in French analytic circles, requiring as they do a radical reappraisal of the legacy bequeathed by Freud. This volume is based on a year's seminar, which is of particular importance because he was addressing a larger, less specialist audience than ever before, amongst whom he could not assume familiarity with his work. For his listeners then, and for his readers now, he wanted "to introduce a certain coherence into the major concepts on which psycho-analysis is based", namely the unconscious, repetition, the transference and the drive. In re-defining these four concepts he explores the question that, as he puts it, moves from "Is psycho-analysis a science?" to "What is a science that includes psycho-analysis?"

This volume is based on a year's seminar in which Dr. Lacan addressed a larger, less specialized audience than ever before, among whom he could not assume familiarity with his work. For his listeners then, and for his readers now, he wanted to "introduce a certain coherence into the major concepts on which psycho-analysis is based," namely, the unconscious, repetition, the transference, and the drive. Along the way he argues for a structural affinity between psychoanalysis and language, discusses the relation of psychoanalysis to religion, and reveals his particular stance on topics ranging from sexuality and death to alienation and repression. This book constitutes the essence of Dr. Lacan's sensibility.

Bringing together three previously unpublished lectures presented to the public by Lacan at the height of his career, and prefaced by Jacques-Alain Miller, My Teaching is a clear, concise introduction to the thought of the influential psychoanalyst after Freud.

Lacan dedicates this seventh year of his famous seminar to the problematic role of ethics in psychoanalysis. Delving into the psychoanalyst's inevitable involvement with ethical questions and "the attraction of transgression," Lacan illuminates Freud's psychoanalytic work and its continued influence. Lacan explores the problem of sublimation, the paradox of jouissance, the essence of tragedy (a reading of Sophocle's Antigone), and the tragic dimension of analytic experience. His exploration leads us to startling insights on "the consequence of man's relationship to desire" and the conflicting judgments of ethics and analysis.

Taking us into and beyond the realm of Freudian psychoanalysis, Lacan examines the psychoses' inescapable connection to the symbolic process through which signifier is joined with signified. Lacan deftly navigates the ontological levels of the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real to explain psychosis as "foreclosure," or rejection of the primordial signifier. Then, bridging the gap between the theoretical and the practical, Lacan discusses the implications for treatment. In these lectures on the psychoses, Lacan's renowned theory of metaphor and metonymy, along with the concept of the "quilting point," appears for the first time.

Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller
Translated with notes by John Forrester

"The Seminar: Books I and II have a special place because of their value as an introduction to Lacan. . . . [They] are a sure path of entry into Lacan's critique of ego psychology. . . . Lacan's work underscores that part of Freud's message that is most revlutionary for our time. The individual is 'decentered'. There is no autonomous self. What sex was to the Victorians, the question of free will is to our new Fin-de-Siecle." —Sherry Turkle, London Review of Books

"A rare opportunity to experience Lacan as a teacher. . . . THe publication of these two early seminars . . . may allow Lacan's work to do what it does most remarkably: she light on, and expend, the theoretical implications of psychoanalysis, but also to train a new generation of psychoanalysts by asking again: what exactly do we do when we do psychoanalysis?" —Lisa Kennedy, Voice Literary Supplement

The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954–1955

Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller; translated by Sylvana Tomaselli; with notes by John Forrester

"The Seminar books I and II have a special place because of their value as an introduction to Lacan. . . . [They] are a sure path of entry into Lacan's critique of ego psychology. . . . Lacan's work underscores that part of Freud's message that is most revolutionary for our time. The individual is 'decentered.' There is no autonomous self. What sex was to the Victorians, the question of free will is to our new Fin-de-Siecle." —Sherry Turkle, London Review of Books

"A rare opportunity to experience Lacan as a teacher. . . . The publication of these two early seminars . . . may allow Lacan's work to do what it does most remarkably: shed light on, and expand, the theoretical implications of psychoanalysis, but also train a new generation of psychoanalysts by asking again and again: what exactly do we do when we do psychoanalysis?" —Lisa Kennedy, Voice Literary Supplement

Concept and Form is a two-volume monument to the work of the philosophy journal the Cahiers pour l'Analyse (1966-69), the most ambitious and radical collective project to emerge from French structuralism. Inspired by their teachers Louis Althusser and Jacques Lacan, the editors of the Cahiers sought to sever philosophy from the interpretation of given meanings or experiences, focusing instead on the mechanisms that structure specific configurations of discourse, from the psychological and ideological to the literary, scientific, and political. Adequate analysis of the operations at work in these configurations, they argue, helps prepare the way for their revolutionary transformation. This first volume comprises English translations of some of the most important theoretical texts published in the journal, written by thinkers who would soon be counted among the most inventive and influential of their generation: Alain Badiou, Yves Duroux, Alain Grosrichard, Serge Leclaire, Jacques-Alain Miller, Jean-Claude Milner, and Francois Regnault. The book is complemented by a second volume, consisting of essays and interviews that assess the significance and legacy of the journal, and by an online edition of the full set of original Cahiers texts, produced by the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, London and accessible at cahiers.kingston.ac.uk.