The year ended with the sad news of the passing of Judith Miller, President of the Foundation of the Freudian Field, wife of Jacques-Alain Miller, and daughter of Jacques Lacan himself. Tributes have been led by the World Association of Psychoanalysis, and two editions of Lacan Quotidien last month (numbers 753 and 754) carry personal messages from those within the analytic community. Outside it in the wider press Le Monde carried its own obituary.

Among new books released at the start of the year, Duane Rousselle’s Lacanian Realism: Political and Clinical Psychoanalysis will be published by Bloomsbury in January. Rousselle’s work is a Lacanian contribution to the recent speculative realism movement and presents a new reading of the category of the Real, in opposition to its presentation by thinkers such as Badiou and Zizek.

Also due to be published in January by Karnac is Yehuda Israely’s Lacanian Treatment: Psychoanalysis for Clinicians offering a clinical introduction to Lacanian practice and the psychotherapeutic handling of different forms of distress. It follows the author’s previous theoretical work, 2007’s Jacques Lacan’s Philosophy and Psychoanalysis. Order it from the publishers Karnac or via Amazon.  

Among the journals, a special issue of DIVISION/Review, the journal of the Division of Psychoanalysis of the American Psychological Association, is now available. It publishes contributions to the conference ‘Any Body, Anybody – The Matter of the Unconscious’ which was held in New York in November 2016. Many of the papers therefore deal with the topic of the unconscious, but in particular its ‘stuff’, ‘substance’ or ‘matter’ (if indeed the unconscious can be said to have any). There are also a number of papers dealing with the body in its multiple meanings, as captured in the title of the conference. Also included are the texts from another 2016 conference at the New School, which revisited the Lacan-Laplanche debate (the ‘La-La’ Debate). The output from that conference is reproduced in this volume in its entirety. Well worth a read.

On the same subject of Laplanche, publishers Unconscious in Translation are offering 50% off Laplanche’s Après-coup: Problématiques VI – both the hardcover and the softcover – with the discount code HOUSE (all CAPS). General Editor Jonathan House’s article ‘The Ongoing Rediscovery of Après-Coup as a Central Freudian Concept’ is published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. House will also be speaking at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) in New York on 24th February on ‘Revolutions in Technique: Laplanche’s R/Evolution in Psychoanalysis’.

The journal Transgender Studies Quarterly has just published a special issue on psychoanalysis featuring a number of contributions from a Lacanian perspective. Jordan Osserman has written two pieces for the issue (available without paywall here) and several other Lacanians, including Patricia Gherovici, Oren Gozlan, and Shanna Carlson, also contribute articles.

The journal Word and Text has released its 2017 issue entitled “50 Years + The Age of ‘New French Theory’ (1966-1970)“. Lacanians may be interested in Miguel Rivera’s piece “‘[D]ifferent even from our “own” differences’: Racial Signification and the Legacy of Lacanian Sexuation” which examines various scholars who have taken up the work of Seminar XX in relation to sex, gender, and race.

The latest edition of Lacunae, Issue 15 (December 2017) was released last month. It is a bumper edition with a host of articles on Kant, interpretation, the ‘selfie,’ a case of psychosis, the Wolfman, transsexuality, plus two reviews of Stijn Vanheule’s and Rob Weatherill’s recent books. In addition, for the first time a translation of Roman Jakobson’s discussion with Lacan on 1st Feb 1967 is made available available in English. More details and how to order here.

SCRIOBH, the journal of the Irish Circle of the Lacanian Orientation, published its latest edition in December. Entitled ‘Sign of the Times’ it includes Lilia Mahjoub’s article ‘From the Signifier to the Sign’, an interview with Eric Laurent, and a report by Florencia F.C. Shanahan on two recent seminars given by Yves Vanderveken to the ICLO-NLS.

Among Lacanian papers published elsewhere, Jasper Feyaerts and Stijn Vanheule’s new piece ‘Expression and the Unconscious’ appeared last month and explores what it means to say that something is ‘unconscious’. It combines Wittgenstein’s perspective on the use of the first- and third-person with a non-epistemic analysis of the meaning of the unconscious itself.

Peter Buse’s article ‘The Dog and the Parakeet: Lacan Among the Animals’, published in December for Angelaki, the Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, is an intriguing contribution “exploring the place of the animal and animals in Lacanian psychoanalysis”. It is a more thorough treatment of this topic than that previously offered by Derrida as it explores Lacan’s references to animals in the entire Seminar, from the early connections to ethology to the bees and rats of Seminar XX.

Among events, a recording of Véronique Voruz’s presentation ‘Love and the Ego’ from Lacanian Compass’s event on 3rd December is now available on Radio Lacan. The seminar was part of the preparatory framework for the group’s Clinical Study Days 11, ‘Delights of the Ego’, which will take place in New York on 9th-11th February. Lacanian Compass also offers several ways to prepare for its event – via local reading groups, small ‘Biblio Notes’ and commentaries, and a series of video conferences, open to the public, with guests from across the globe. In addition, two new editions of its journal, LCExpress, were published in December. The first features Sophie Marret-Maleval’s examination of the “non-sexual-rapport” in ‘An Irreducible Misunderstanding’. The second, the text of Silvia Tendlarz’s 2015 presentation ‘The Miracle of Love: From Feminine Sexuality to Jouissance As Such’.

The Lacan Circle of Melbourne has a new site, updated with details of its Saturday seminars, Study Days, and upcoming international conference on The Late Lacan, which will take place 14th-15th July. A call for papers for the latter is out, with a deadline of 1st March for submissions. Full details on the group’s site, and the flyer for the conference is here.  

The Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research in London has announced its programme for the Spring term 2018, comprising an array of public seminars starting 13th January, and a four-part Short Course on Unconscious Phantasy running to the end of February.

The Argument has now been published for this year’s NLS Congress in Paris which will take place 30th June-1st July. Under the title ‘In a State of Transference – Wild, Political, Psychoanalytic’ Lilia Mahjoub’s piece traces the concept of transference within psychoanalysis – as an obstacle, a dialectic, and a knot; and outside it – as a social bond, an acting out, or a “truth-knowledge”. Registration for the Congress is now open here.

The LaConference 2018, organised by Lacan Salon, will take place in Vancouver, Canada on April 6th-7th. The call for papers deadline is 1st February. This year the theme is ‘Lacan and the Environment’, with proposals that take the latter term in its sociocultural or ecological sense welcome.

Finally, a call for papers is now out for the forthcoming 2018 Lacan Écrits Conference which will take place at Ghent University, Belgium, 21st-22nd September. The impressive array of keynote speakers comprises Bruce Fink, Patricia Gherovici, Adrian Johnston, Dany Nobus, Ed Pluth, Manya Steinkoler, Paul Verhaeghe and Eve Watson. Chairs will be Derek Hook, Calum Neill, and Stijn Vanheule. Proposals for papers or panels can be made here by 15th March. Registration will open from then so stay tuned for more details.

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