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Beginning with the latest books out now and coming soon, and Diego Busiol’s Lacanian Psychoanalysis in Practice: Insights from Fourteen Psychoanalysts was published last month by Routledge. Collecting insights from fourteen analysts from Italy and France (Busiol is himself Italian, based in Hong Kong), its focus is on the practice of psychoanalytic listening – what the analyst is listening to or for. Its chapters include contributions on hysteria, obsessive discourse and phobia, paranoia, panic disorder, eating disorders, and addiction – among many others.

Shirley Zisser’s Writing, Speech and Flesh in Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Of Unconscious Grammatology was released in September. Exploring “the place of the flesh in the linguistically-inflected categories of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis”, Zisser argues for how such psycho-linguistic categories are suffused with organicity. She goes on to argue in a Derridean vein for the primacy of writing to speech in psychoanalysis on the grounds that “the relation between speech and writing is not binary but topological, as speech in its psychoanalytic conception is nothing but the folding inside-out of unconscious writing.”

Berjanet Jazani’s Lacan, Mortality, Life and Language: Clinical and Cultural Explorations also came out in September from Routledge. Taking examples from her practice as well as cultural references which span ancient Persia to London’s Theatreland, Jazani explores “the question of the reality and mortality of a subject through a Lacanian prism”, dealing with symptom formation, subjectivity and fairy tales, clinical diagnosis, and how we get from the Oedipal myth to the “poetry of knots.”

Lacan and Other Heresies: Lacanian Psychoanalytic Writings presents the papers of the Freudian School of Melbourne and the Belgian analyst Christian Fierens, edited by Linda Clifton. Released at the end of September by Routledge, it is the 26th volume in the series of the School’s papers, and its chapters offer an engagement with topics such as child analysis, psychosis, and a re-examination of the work of Sabina Spielrein.

Looking ahead this month, Studies on Hysteria Revisited will be released in mid-October, a collection of the work of French analyst and founder of L’Association lacanienne internationale in Paris, Charles Melman. Translated by Helen Sheehan, these 21 seminars deal with trauma, incompatibility, repression, and the unconscious and are illustrated with clinical vignettes. Melman is a major figure in French psychoanalysis post-Lacan, and has written extensively on clinical and theoretical topics, but his work has been little-translated into English so this collection is all the more valuable. Use the 20% discount code and the link at the top of the page when ordering directly from the publisher, Routledge.

Among newly-announced work is the exciting news that Reading Lacan’s Ecrits: From Logical Time to Response to Jean Hyppolite is due for release in mid-February 2022. The third volume in this series from Routledge – edited by Derek Hook, Calum Neill, and Stijn Vanheule – it presents close commentaries on the papers in the Ecrits by Dominiek Hoens (Logical Time), Bernard Burgoyne (Presentation on Transference) and Derek Hook & Marc De Kesel (Function and Field) among others. It is available for pre-order now and promises to be a must-own volume as part of a vital series.

Also just announced for publication is Dany Nobus’ Critique of Psychoanalytic Reason: Studies in Lacanian Theory and Practice, which will be released in March 2022 as the latest in the CFAR Library collection. Nobus promises a sharp critique of frequently-espoused parts of Lacan’s theoretical and clinical edifice, drawing on unpublished archival documents and other source materials in a discussion of controversial areas such as money, organisational failure, the variable-length session, and male chauvinism.

For French speakers, two new books of interest to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Lacan’s death. Firstly, Aux confins du Séminaire [At the Edge of the Seminar], a text established by Jacques-Alain Miller which brings together at one end of Lacan’s teaching his 1952-1953 ‘seminar before the Seminar’ on the Wolf Man, and at the other end his post-Seminar XXV texts Dissolution and the Caracas Seminar in 1980, which was Lacan’s last. Also included in this volume is La Troisième – Théorie de lalangue. Secondly, Pourquoi Lacan, a series of short essays in which various writers, actors, poets, analysts, an architect, a mathematician, and a film director relate their encounters with Lacan. The collection is edited by Anaëlle Lebovits-Quenehen.

Among the journals, a new title launched last month – Penumbr(a): A Journal of Psychoanalysis & Modernity Its first issue is on Psychoanalysis & Sexual Violence and features articles by Alenka Zupancic, Jamieson Webster, Anne Juranville, Danielle Bergeron, and more. A call for papers for the second issue, on Beauty, will be available shortly. Relatedly a podcast, Penumbr(a)cast, was launched concurrently. Its first series of interviews, conducted by Fernanda Negrete, Director of the Centre for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture, discusses key analytic concepts and procedures after Lacan, with a special emphasis on GIFRIC’s approach. The first interview, featuring Tracy McNulty on the pass and the act, is now available for streaming through the journal website and on Spotify, Google Podcasts, and soon Apple Podcasts. The next interview, with Daniel Wilson on das Ding and drive, will be out shortly.  

Among other podcasts of interest from the past month, the latest of the second series in the Freud in Focus podcast from the Freud Museum concludes the exploration of Freud’s paper ‘The Uncanny’, with hosts Jamie Ruers and Tom De Rose looking at its impact on literature and the arts. And in one of the latest episodes of the Rendering Unconscious podcast, Bracha Ettinger, Isabel Millar, Julie Reshe, Helen Rollins, and Creston Davis discuss their work teaching in the Certificate in Psychoanalysis program of the Institute of Psychoanalysis at the Global Centre of Advanced Studies (GCAS).

4+one, the NLS cartels newsletter, released its latest collection of new papers from ‘cartelisands’ last month, bringing together a series of short reports of the work of cartel members from within the NLS’s network. Texts are bilingual and cover the different areas of work cartel participants find provocative or intriguing to be engaged with.

Among the videos, Derek Hook’s YouTube channel continues to offer excellent interviews with thoughtful and original Lacanian scholars. From the last month, John Dall’Aglio’s discussion of Lacan and neuroscience is a particular highlight, and the interview with Jamie Ruers at the Freud Museum which Derek Hook and Sheldon George gave to launch their new collection Lacan and Race is also now available on the channel. Subscribe for more.

Lacan In Scotland posted video of its event with Fabio Vighi on capitalism, the COVID-19 pandemic, and Lacan’s discourse theory, which took place at the end of September. Vighi’s talk focuses on the pandemic as a monetary event and its “fetishistic character within the crumbling capitalist structure”, asking the question: can a new discourse emerge from the current stalemate? Subscribe to the channel for more as an exciting programme of events will follow with the new academic year commencing.

CFAR’s Public Seminar programme for the new academic year has now started, with all seminars held via Zoom, and as well as an exciting series of talks this year the Centre has begun to put recordings of its lectures online. These are viewable via the video icon against the talk – follow the link to Vimeo and payment instructions for access.

Finally, ADIEU LACAN, the film directed by Richard C. Ledes, held an avant-premiere screening in Paris on September 9th, the 40th anniversary of Jacques Lacan’s death, at the historic cinema Studio des Ursulines. The film features David Patrick Kelly as Lacan, Ismenia Mendes as Seriema, and Antu Yacob as Gloria:

“With realistic acumen and artistic expertise, ADIEU LACAN portrays the struggles of a young woman, Seriema, who is trying to understand why her path to motherhood has reached an unbearable impasse. Following two miscarriages and the possible loss of her marriage, Seriema travels to Paris in 1972 to undergo psychoanalytic treatment with the maverick French analyst, Jacques Lacan. Her analysis is an attempt to help her to disentangle the enigma of her question: why has motherhood become a seeming impossibility? Inspired by the story of Betty Milan, a Brazilian psychoanalyst and writer, it follows closely her own actual psychoanalysis with Lacan. Based on two books, Goodbye Doctor and Lacan’s Parrot, in which Milan recounts her analytic work, Adieu Lacan offers an insightful and accurate account of an actual psychoanalytic cure.” – Mavis Himes, Psychoanalyst and author of “The Power of Names.

Winner of the best experimental feature narrative award at the 2021 Montreal Independent film festival, ADIEU LACAN will have its public premiere in the first half of 2022. In the meantime, clinical associations, university classes, and other groups can arrange screenings online. Based on availability, the film’s director will participate in a Q&A following these screenings. To find out more visit www.adieulacan.com

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