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Routledge published the second of the three-volume Reading Lacan’s Écrits series at the start of August. Edited by Stijn Vanheule, Derek Hook and Calum Neill, volume II encompasses the papers from ‘The Freudian Thing’ to ‘Remarks on Daniel Lagache’ and offers paragraph-by-paragraph commentaries on the texts. To get a 20% discount and free global shipping on this (and all Routledge titles) see the top of this page. 

The series’ three editors discuss the collection in the latest New Books in Psychoanalysis podcast from July. They also discuss the Lacan’s Écrits Conference series, the first of which took place in Ghent last year to coincide with the publication of the first volume, with the second due to take place in Pittsburgh this October. The program for the latter is now available on the event’s site, together with brief synopses of each paper. Additionally, as mentioned at the end of the podcast, a number of the papers presented at the Ghent conference are being collected into a journal which will be available in time for the Pittsburgh conference.

Relatedly, Prof Todd McGowan discusses his commentary on ‘The Signification of the Phallus’ – the opening chapter of the first volume of Reading Lacan’s Écrits  – in the Rendering the Unconscious podcast from last month.

Due out at the end of August is The Routledge Handbook of Psychoanalytic Political Theory edited by Yannis Stavrakakis.  Weighing in at almost 500 pages, it aims to be the first publication which maps the impact of psychoanalysis on political theory. Across its five focus areas it deals with Figures, Themes, Traditions, Concepts, and Challenges/Controversies in the engagement between psychoanalysis and politics. It is available to pre-order from Amazon (though with the discount above makes ordering from publishers Routledge the cheaper option at present). 

Critical Theory Between Klein and Lacan: A Dialogue by Mari Ruti and Amy Allen will be published Bloomsbury as part of its Psychoanalytic Horizons series in August. Bringing the Klein and Lacan’s work into dialogue, subjects discussed in this volume include desire, trauma, affect and history, which will be covered by the two authors commenting from their respective theoretical stances. Ruti represents the Lacanian perspective thanks to her work within critical theory, gender and sexuality studies; while Allen, representing critical theory from the Frankfurt School, will offer commentary from a Kleinian approach.

Juan-David Nasio’s Psychoanalysis and Repetition: Why Do We Keep Making the Same Mistakes? received its English translation, courtesy of David Pettigrew, from publishers SUNY last month. The book is primarily concerned with “the repetition of unconscious trauma, as trauma engenders trauma, through unconscious fantasms that are expressed, in turn, as symptoms”. Originally published in France in 2012, it is a work which theorises the unconscious as repetition itself but which comments closely on Lacan’s texts within a broader philosophical frame encompassing Spinoza and Nietzsche, among others. 

Lastly among new books, Samo Tomšič’s The Labour of Enjoyment Towards a Critique of Libidinal Economy is now available in paperback after its initial release earlier this year. It argues for communism as “the only signifier of a potential political cure” to capitalism, and discusses the political as an impossible task, reminiscent of the way Freud described politics as one of the three impossible professions (alongside psychoanalysis and education) in 1937.

Among journals, the latest edition of Lacanian Ink – 53 – has now been released and features new and translated papers by Miller on the object of jouissance; a commentary on his translation of Lacan; and an introduction to the reading of Seminar VI. 

A print-only, limited edition of Psychoanalytical Notebooks, the journal of the London Society of the New Lacanian School, was released last month. It features Lacan’s 1947 paper ‘British Psychiatry and the War’ alongside Éric Laurent’s  commentary on it, ‘The Real and the Group’. It also carries the first print publication of Jacques-Alain Miller’s 2000 paper ‘The Turin Theory of the Subject of the School’.

Among events, the Australian Centre for Psychoanalysis in Melbourne has announced its twentieth Symposium presented by the ACP and the Forum of Melbourne for Sat 7th Sept. On the theme ‘Treatments of the Body’ it will discuss how symptoms can be conceived as “events of the body”. Full programme and link to register here.

The Irish Circle of the Lacanian Orientation has published its programme of upcoming events for the year 2019/2020. Starting on Sat 21st Sept with an inaugural event on ‘Art and Psychoanalysis: Possibilities and Politics’ it will be followed by various teaching seminars and NLS-themed events, culminating in a Study Day in May next year at which Alexandre Stevens will speak ahead of the NLS Congress on the theme of ‘Interpretation: From Truth to Event’. 

Ian Parker will be discussing his new book Psychoanalysis, Clinic and Context: Subjectivity, History and Autobiography at Blackwell’s Bookshop in Manchester on Mon 30th September. He will be in conversation with Carol Owens, a practising psychoanalyst based in Dublin.  Additionally, a review of the book by Robert K. Beshara for the journal Language and Psychoanalysis was published in early August. 

Adrian Price, one of Lacan’s foremost English translators, discusses Lacan’s last major written work, ‘Joyce-the-Symptom’, in a talk presented at Das Unbehagen in New York recently. Audio recording of his talk was released in July and can be found on Das Unbehagen’s site here.

Finally, the Lacanian community remains indebted to Richard G. Klein whose site Freud2Lacan.com continues to be a goldmine of resources and rare texts. One of the latest new additions is a bilingual, side-by-side translation of Lacan’s Seminar XXVI, Topology and Time, translated by Anthony Chadwick and available in ten brief parts. It is currently number 3 on the list of Lacan resources here. 

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