An upcoming conference at the Freud Museum in London in October commemorates the work of one of the finest writers on psychoanalysis, John Forrester, who died in November last year. ‘Thinking in Cases: On and Beyond the Couch’ is a half-day symposium on his long-standing research project of the same name, an attempt to theorise the particular kind of thinking that pertains to psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. While not a Lacanian, Forrester is perhaps best known to the Lacanian community for his translation of Seminar I in 1988 and his contribution to the translation of Seminar II which followed the same year. Full details and a link to book are on the Museum’s site. Thinking in Cases is due to be released by Polity in November in the UK and December in the US. Pre-order via those links. For anyone interested in Forrester’s work, his study of the developments of psychoanalytic precepts, Language and the Origins of Psychoanalysis, is very highly recommended.

Daniel Bristow’s Joyce and Lacan: Reading, Writing, and Psychoanalysis was published in August. Bristow’s book engages with Lacan’s late teaching, in which his reading of Joyce formed a prominent part. Through a particular focus on Joyce’s own last text, Finnegans Wake, Bristow explores the notions of the sinthome, lalangue, and Lacan’s use of topology and knot theory. Bristow may already be known to Lacanians as co-founder of the Everyday Analysis Collective which – although sadly retired last month – will nonetheless produce a new book, Politactics, due to be published by Zero Books in October.

Ben Tyrer’s Out of the Past: Lacan and Film Noir was published last month. It is the first title in the new Palgrave Lacan Series which features the best new writing in the Lacanian field, under the editorship of Derek Hook and Calum Neill. Out of the Past presents a new reading of film noir through psychoanalytic theory. In a field now dominated by Deleuzian and phenomenological approaches to film-philosophy, this book argues that, far from having passed, the time for Lacan in Film Studies is only just beginning. A preview is available on Amazon where it can be ordered in the US and in the UK.

Forthcoming among new book announcements last month is Patricia Gherovici and Manya Steinkoler’s Lacan, Psychoanalysis, and Comedy, a collection of essays explores laughter, humour, and the comic from a psychoanalytic perspective, which has been announced for release in September. Its twelve essays tackle subjects as diverse as Democritus and Lacan; the economy of jokes in Freud, Lacan and Marx, bulimic dreams; and Jane Austen’s wit-craft. Take a look and pre-order here.

Among journals, the Fall 2016 issue of Lacanian Ink (48) is scheduled to be released in the next month, featuring contributions by Jacques-Alain Miller and Pierre-Gilles Guéguen, among others. Keep an eye on Lacan.com for news of the release date.

Among events, as anticipated in last month’s news round-up following July’s NLS Congress, the NLS has announced that the theme for the next Congress in Paris, 29th-30th April 2017, will be: ‘About the Unconscious – Place and Interpretation of Formations of the Unconscious in Psychoanalytical Treatments’. A detailed presentation of the theme and bibliographic references will be circulated shortly. A site for the event is also likely to be launched housing these resources.

The Lacan Circle of Melbourne and the Australian Centre for Psychoanalysis will be holding their annual joint colloquium on Saturday 10th September with speakers Esther Faye, David Ferraro, Leonardo S Rodríguez, Gary Gallagher, Noriaki Sato, and Peter Ellingsen. The full
programme is available on the Circle’s site.

The Repetition/s conference on performance and philosophy takes place in Ljubljana later this month, 21st-24th September. It will seek “to investigate and develop the usefulness of the Ljubljana School’s theorisations for the emerging field of Performance Philosophy.” Lacanians will no doubt be aware that the Ljubljana School comprises philosophers such as Dolar, Zupančič, and Žižek whose work combines Lacanian theory with German idealism. The full programme is available here and registration here.

The Circle for the Lacanian Orientation of Omaha (CLOO) will be hosting a series of seminars on the Dora case in September. On 9th Freud’s original case will be taken up, followed on 16th with Lacan’s commentary in ‘Intervention on the Transference’ from 1952, and then finally on 30th a commentary on contemporary readings such as Veronique Voruz’s paper on the case in The Later Lacan. More details on the group’s page.

NYFLAG, the New York Freud-Lacan Analytic Group, will continue the Reading Seminar program on Lacan’s Seminar XXIII, The Sinthome in September, with associated texts from Miller’s “Spare Parts” lecture (2004-2005) taken from his course L’orientation lacanienne. In conjunction, the Clinical Seminar on obsessional neurosis will take selected readings from Lacan’s seminars. The series begins on 14th September with a seminar on Jacques-Alain Miller’s address to the WAP congress in Rio earlier this year – ‘Habeas corpus’ – in preparation for the next congress which will be held in Barcelona in 2018. The events are free and open to all. Full details on the NYFLAG site.

A Call for Papers has gone out for an upcoming event by Lacanian Compass in the US on the theme of its 10th Clinical Study Days, ‘Beyond Oedipus, Family Dramas, Family Traumas’. The event takes place in Miami Beach, Florida, 3rd-5th February 2017. Marie-Hélène Brousse and Pierre-Gilles Guéguen are participants, and proposals for a case study of 15,000 words should be submitted to ThomasSvolos@creighton.edu before 31st October.

Finally, for French speakers, two articles published last month will be of note. Firstly, François Ansermet’s Paradoxes des signes discrets dans la psychose ordinaire from Lacan Quotidien, especially of interest for those who have been following the debates around the field of ordinary psychosis raised most recently at the NLS Congress in Dublin at the start of July. The paradox of the title refers to the points at which the ‘discreet’ signs of ordinary psychosis become not-so discreet, extra-ordinary. Secondly, an interview for the Lacanian Review Online with Guy Briole, who talks about the recent attacks in France and his paper, ‘Trauma’, prepared for the 44e Journées de l’École de la Cause freudienne.

Got news? Get in touch.