A special conference in Madrid on 13th May brought together psychoanalysts of the Lacanian orientation, in the wake of the French presidential elections, to discuss what the future role of psychoanalysis should be in the political sphere. In an address to the conference, Jacques-Alain Miller announced the launch of a new international journal of Lacanian politics, Heretic, which will be available as an online supplement to Lacan Quotidien. As Miller describes it, “It will be a publication at once with reference to Lacan and without any dogmatism, a sort of infinite conversation with which to orient ourselves in the world”. The intention is to publish texts in their own languages from a global list of commentators, with contributions coming from related parts of philosophy, sociology and economics. The full text of Miller’s address at the Madrid conference (translated into French from the original in Spanish) is available on Lacan Quotidien here and the video from the conference is available (in Spanish) on the World Association’s site here.

Plenty of events of interest to Lacanians coming up over the next month. Beginning in chronological order on 6th June, Bogdan Wolf of the London Society of the NLS will continue his seminar series ‘Between Anxiety and Love’, with the 9th lesson entitled ‘The absent and the ubiquitous phallus – the ear and the voice’. Details and link to register are on the London Society’s site here.

In the US, Lacanian Compass will be holding its latest Virtual Meeting on Sunday 11th June via video conference, with a special guest lecture from Fabian Fajnwaks on ‘The Culture of Narcissism’. The event is free and open to all – for details of how to access the WebEx see the Lacanian Compass site. A list of all upcoming events from the group’s busy schedule is also available there.

The Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society postgraduate conference hosted by the Centre for Psychoanalysis, Middlesex University, will take place in London on Saturday 17th June. The last chance to book is 15th June. The one-day conference is designed to give students from all disciplines who are interested in psychoanalysis an opportunity to present and discuss their research in an informal and intellectually stimulating setting. A link to book and more details are here.

On 19th June the MA in Psychoanalytic Studies at Birkbeck, University of London will hold its Annual Lecture, this year entitled ‘Revisiting the Death Drive via Lacan, Zizek… and the Political’. Derek Hook will introduce a Lacanian reconceptualisation of the death drive and argue for its use as vital instrument of psychosocial and political analysis. Entry is free but booking in advance is recommended.

On Saturday 24th June, the Cyprus Society of the School of the Freudian Letter will be hosting the psychiatrist and Lacanian psychoanalyst Dimitra Gorgoli from Greece, for a seminar and a discussion. Her seminar will be on ‘The object Gaze’, and the discussion on ‘Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis’. In addition, Angelos Tsialides’ seminar of 26th March on ‘The subject’s relation to language as a logical system’ is now available on YouTube (Part 1 and Part 2).

Meanwhile, in New York on 24th June Après-Coup Psychoanalytic Association will be hosting a panel discussion titled S’auteuriser de lui-même?, drawing on Lacan’s cryptic mantra regarding the training and authorisation of psychoanalysts. Alain Didier-Weill, Marco Antonio Coutinho Jorge, Paolo Lollo, and Jean-Michel Vives will be guest speakers. More details on the Association’s Facebook page as well.

The Freud Museum, London will be welcoming Lorenzo Chiesa on 4th July for a discussion of his latest book The Not-Two: Logic and God in Lacan. Chiesa will offer a close reading of Lacan’s effort in the early 1970s to formalize sexual difference as incompleteness, and give an assessment of its broader implications for philosophical realism and materialism. Full details on the Museum’s site and a link to register on the Eventbrite page.

For later in the year, Lacanian practitioners might also be interested in the clinical conference ‘Psychoanalysis & Sexuality Today’, planned for 21st October in Dublin. The event will feature contributors from all clinical orientations in Ireland alongside a number of Lacanian speakers. More details and registration on the Eventbrite page here.

From previous months’ events, the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna has now made available podcasts of a few of its recent guest lectures. They include Alenka Zupancic’s lecture ‘Freud and the ‘Death Drive’’ from 20th April; Giuseppe Civitarese and Bernard Toboul’s ‘Where is the Unconscious Today?’ from 18th March; and Jeanne Wolff Bernstein and Mariano Horenstein’s presentation at the ‘Dislocated Subject’ conference from last October.

Among new resources, thanks to Duane Rousselle for making available (for private study) two of his translations of Lacan’s lesser-known pieces. First, Lacan’s 1968 interview ‘The Psychoanalyst’s Point of View, Neurosis and Psychosis: Where Does Abnormal Begin?’, and second Lacan’s 1958 paper (which was rejected for the conference at which it was intended to be presented), ‘True and False Psychoanalysis’.

Thanks also to Richard G. Klein of Freud2Lacan.com for offering his translation of ‘Judaism in the Life and Work of Jacques Lacan’ by Gérard Haddad, one of Lacan’s former analysands. Klein has also made available Anthony Chadwick’s translation of Lacan’s 1967 Proposition of 9th October 1967.

Lastly, for French speakers, published by Epel last month was Jean Allouch’s latest work, Pourquoi y a-t-il de l’excitation sexuelle plutôt que rien?. Allouch is a well-respected author and historian of French psychoanalysis, whose most notable work is his 2001 retracing of the patient behind Lacan’s 1932 doctoral dissertation, Marguerite ou l’Aimée de Lacan.

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