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New Publications
Jean Allouch’s New Remarks on the Passage to the Act: Lacan and the Lacanians was published by Routledge last month. Allouch, who died in 2023, was one of Lacan’s analysands but a major analyst in his own right. In this short book, translated by Oscar Zentner, we find Allouch’s conference presentation given on 14th December 2018 on what was then his forthcoming book, New Remarks on the Passage to the Act, which serves as an introduction to the text itself. In the latter, Allouch considers the psychoanalytic response to acts of unexplained violence, examining the concept of the ‘passage to the act’ with reference to the crimes of the Papin sisters, Lacan’s case of Aimée, and the murder of Hélène Rytmann by Louis Althusser. Allouch’s previous books (in French) include his exhaustive study of Lacan’s aforementioned patient, Marguerite ou l’Aimée de Lacan, and his compendium of quips from Lacan’s practice, Les Impromptus de Lacan.
Queer Theory, Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Sexual Politics: From Norm to Desire by Luiz Valle Junior has just been released, making the case for the ongoing relevance of Lacanian psychoanalysis to how we think about the contemporary LGBTQIA+ movement and political activism. Against the dominance of identity and normativity in such debates, Valle Junior poses questions of desire and enjoyment as primary, challenging the readings of Lacan advanced by Butler and others.
On Breathing: Care in a Time of Catastrophe by Jamieson Webster was released in March. Her latest book begins with meditations on the first breaths of the newborn baby, met by its mother with both attentiveness and anxiety. From there Webster explores our other anxieties about this most crucial yet little-considered aspect of life, from the impact of climate change to respiratory illness. She draws on her personal experiences as an asthmatic teenager, a deep-sea diver, a palliative psychologist during COVID, a psychoanalyst attentive to the somatic, and a new mother. Webster will be appearing at various events in New York in April to discuss the book: on Weds April 9th at McNally Jackson Seaport, in conversation with Alissa Bennett; on Fri April 11th with Hannah Zeavin as part of a discussion of psychoanalysis and poetry; and on Sun April 13th at Pioneer Works, in conversation with Leslie Jamison.
New Film – V13
V13 is the new film by Richard C. Ledes, director and producer of 2022’s Adieu, Lacan. This is Ledes’ second fiction film based on the work of a Lacanian psychoanalyst and features Emmy and Tony Award winner Alan Cumming playing the role of Sigmund Freud. In Vienna in 1913, when Europe is on the brink of WWI, two young men from different backgrounds, Hugo and Adolf, become friends. One, a musician from a privileged background, chooses to undergo psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud, while the other, a struggling artist obsessed with vegetarianism, takes up the cause of German Nationalism. The screenplay for V13 is based on Vienne 1913, a play by the French writer and Lacanian psychoanalyst Alain Didier-Weill (1939-2018), who was himself analysed by Lacan and whose published works include Three Times of the Law: The Stunning Commandment, the Injunction of the Superego, and Musical Invocation. The film will be available on Vimeo on April 4th, and on other streaming services on May 17th.
Upcoming Events
The Colorado Analytic Forum of the Lacanian Field continues its program of events on upcoming Wednesdays in April and May. On April 30th, Michael Barnard, AP of the EPFCL, Director of Cuerno Verde Press presents, “’Why must I repeat myself – again!’ The Symptom in the Real.” This will be followed on May 28th when Benjamin Ramey, AP of the EPFCL presents, “On dissociation and dissociative phenomena: Preliminaries for a Lacanian approach.” All events are free, hybrid and open to all.
Registration is still open for the last remaining places at the NLS Congress in Paris on 17-18th May. The Congress blog contains preparatory texts, videos and resources on this year’s theme, ‘Painful Loves.’
PIPOL 12, which takes place in Brussels 12th-13th July on the theme ‘Family and Its Discontents’, has also issued its last call for papers for the simultaneous sessions ahead of the deadline of Sat 5th April. Registration for the conference itself is now open, and the presentation of the argument for the theme is on its site too.
New Recordings
Lacan in Scotland’s launch event for the new collection Stupidity and Psychoanalysis: Lacanian Perspectives on New Subjectivities and Social Forms is now on YouTube. Prof Calum Neill is joined by the book’s editor, Prof Cindy Zeiher, to chair a discussion with some of the contributing authors, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Samo Tomšič, James Martell, and Antonio Viselli.
Prof Dr Samuel McCormick’s Lectures on Lacan podcast series continues to explore Lacan’s Seminar XX, reaching Episode 10 covering chapters 8 and 9 of the Seminar. You can also catch up on YouTube. At the same time, the exploration of Seminar XXI has commenced and you can sign up to the series and discussion here.
New Resources
Over on Freud2Lacan.com is a new translation of the text known as ‘Proposition A’ from 1969 (number 138 on the Lacan page), which – following Lacan’s Proposition of 9th October 1967 – proposed the principles concerning the admission to the title of psychoanalyst in the Ecole freudienne de Paris (EFP). The titles proposed, AE for Analyst of the School and AME for Member Analyst of the School, are still in use today. The text proposes the procedure known as ‘the Pass’ as the method by which – “in the absence of a sufficiently elaborated theory of the training analysis, and in order to avoid the arbitrary… in the process of giving the title of psychoanalyst” – the title of AE would be granted. It goes on to explain the role of the trainee’s own testimony, and that of the ‘passers’ who communicate the candidate’s testimony to the approval committee. For more on the history of the pass, and the changes to its form since, see this clip in which Jacques-Alain Miller discusses the issues at stake.
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