News – July 2017

News

Among new publications released last month, Lacanian Psychoanalysis with Babies, Children, and Adolescents: Further Notes on the Child, a collection under the editorship of Carol Owens and Stephanie Farrelly Quinn, was published by Karnac. Although, as the authors note, there is no “doctrine of the psychoanalysis of children” in Lacan’s work, this collection brings together Lacanian analysts from around the world to theorise and conceptualise psychoanalytic work with children. More details on publishers Karnac or Amazon.

Lacan’s Return to Antiquity by Oliver Harris has now been published by Routledge. The book studies the role of classical myth and philosophy in Lacan’s work and has received very positive reviews from, among others, Adam Phillips and Dany Nobus. More details on Routledge or Amazon.

In French, Juan Pablo Luchelli’s Le premier Lacan: Wallon et Kojève came out last month and looks at Lacan’s early work and the influence of Henri Wallon and Alexandre Kojève on this period. The Family Complexes article from 1938 bears the mark of this period, but Luchelli points to the fact that recently-discovered letters from Lacan to Kojève found in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France show that this intellectual influence extended much further in Lacan’s career. The book also includes an until-now unpublished text from 1936, jointly-written by the pair.

Among upcoming publications announced last month, Dominik Finkelde’s Excessive Subjectivity: Kant, Hegel, Lacan, and the Foundations of Ethics may be of interest. Finkelde rereads Lacan from the perspective of the German idealist tradition, developing an ethics around non-conformist acts capable of transforming the social order. It is scheduled for release in September by Columbia University Press.

Lacanian Ink 50, on ‘The real unconscious’, was announced last month for publication this autumn. It will feature Miller’s paper of the same name, as well as contributions from Josefina Ayerza, Yves Vanderveken, Marie-Hélène Brousse, and American filmmaker Richard Kern. Keep an eye on Lacan.com for more.

Bruce Fink discusses his latest book A Clinical Introduction to Freud with Anna Fishzon in the New Books Network’s podcast from July. At the end of the hour-long conversation Fink also discusses work on his forthcoming translation of Seminar VI, Desire and its Interpretation, which received its official French publication in 2013. Seminar VI will be one of the larger publications from Lacan’s Seminar, weighing in at 600 pages, with the first section largely occupied by a commentary on The Interpretation of Dreams, and the later parts containing seven or eight classes on Shakespeare’s Hamlet and a commentary on Jones’ text on the same. Fink also revealed that he is working on the next Inspector Canal novel, loosely based on Lacan, with the tentative title The Da Vinci Staircase.

Among new translations now available, a project to translate Lacan’s Seminar IV, La Relation d’objet, into English is underway led by the Earls Court Collective based in London. The first two sessions of the Seminar – from 21st November and 28th November 1956 – are now available on Lacanian Works with accompanying notes. Further references and endnotes are provided towards the bottom of that page. Keep an eye on Lacanian Works for more of the Seminar to come.

Newly-available on Freud2Lacan.com is Richard G. Klein’s trilingual translation of Freud’s case of Nina R., dating from the time of the Studies in Hysteria (1891-1894). The case is not available in the English Standard Edition. You can find the translation on the site’s Freud/Philosophy page, number 35 on the menu.

Among upcoming events announced last month, Jean-Gérard Bursztein, author of The Topological Transformation of Freud’s Theory, will be leading a two-day event in London in March 2018 titled ‘Coextension of Psychoanalysis and Subjective Topology: a Future for Psychoanalysis’. Bursztein will be exploring how to work with psychoanalysis as subjective topology, an area he has written and spoken about extensively. Full details, a link to the argument, and booking are available on the Eventbrite page here.

The Earls Court Clinical Group will be holding its next Open Meeting in London on 24th September. All are welcome. Each of the four speakers will give a short presentation on a clinical topic which will then be opened up for discussion. The meeting should run for about 2 hours and there will a break half-way through. Sign up to join via Eventbrite here.

Coming up in Madrid, the Escuela Lacaniana de Psicoanálisis has announced its XVIes Jornadas for 11th & 12th November with the title ‘Yo Soy.. Todos Somos…’, [‘I am… We are all’], which will look at “psychoanalysis in the face of new identities”. Topics promised for discussion include new diagnoses, nominations, questions of gender/gender in question, and ‘communities of jouissance’. Register here.

In New York on 23rd September, Das Unbehagen will be hosting a workshop at the New School on Lacan’s notoriously difficult late text L’Étourdit. Contributors include Marcus Coelen, Jamieson Webster, Patricia Gherovici, Manya Steinkoler, and Eliana Calligaris. See the flyer here for more details and how to register. An English translation of L’Étourdit is available on LacaninIreland.com here. To help with this difficult text, two readings by Christian Fierens are also available on that site here.

In France, the ECF has announced its 47th Journées for 25th and 26th of November in Paris under the title Apprendre – Désir ou Dressage. The full programme, argument, and thematic axes are on the event’s site.

Audio of Jacques-Alain Miller’s’ address to the SLP Congress in Turin last month, ‘Praise to the Hertics’, is available on Radio Lacan in two parts – part one and part two – in simultaneous Italian and French translations. The recordings comprise samples of each section of the conference with Miller’s contributions. There is also a recording of an interview with Miller (in French), conducted in April on the political situation in France around the presidential candidacy of Marine Le Pen and what should be the response of the psychoanalytic community.

Relatedly, LacanTV has made available video of Jacques-Alain Miller’s course on psychoanalysis at the École de la Cause freudienne, from the session on 24th June. LacanTV is an initiative of the ECF and aims to post further videos related to its activities, its teachings and Study Days. Stay tuned!

Radio Lacan also carries an interview with Thomas Svolos from last month, taking questions on his latest book, Twenty-First Century Psychoanalysis, which was published in April.

For Spanish speakers, Radio Lacan has recordings of three presentations from the Catalan Community of the ELP commemorating the 50th anniversary of Lacan’s ‘Proposition of 9 October 1967 on the Psychoanalyst of the School’.

Lastly from the WAP and its affiliates, ahead of its 2018 Congress in Barcelona, the NLS published more papers last month via its 777 newsletter on the Congress’s theme – ‘The ordinary psychoses and the others, under transference’. Texts are in Italian, French, and Spanish as part of this collection titled ‘Disorders, symptoms, and discreet signs’.

And finally, Italian newspaper La Repubblica carried an interview in July with Giacomo Contri, Lacan’s Italian translator and one of the key figures responsible for introducing Lacanian thought into the country’s psychoanalytic tradition. Contri describes having been introduced to Lacan’s Seminar by François Wahl, Lacan’s editor at Seuil, and going into analysis with him, where the sessions never exceeded 15 minutes. His descriptions of Lacan as “the most reckless intelligence” who became infuriated at having to stop at red traffic lights should amuse.

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