Thanks to a proposal by the Mayor of Paris, the city looks set to finally get its rue Jacques Lacan. The dedicated street will be located in the east of the city, alongside the Seine and close to the Bibliotheque Nationale de France:

rue Jacques Lacan

The proposal (here, in French) reads “the denomination ‘rue Jacques Lacan’ will be attributed to the passage starting at 75 avenue de France in the 13th arrondissement” which, “traverses the rue Jeanne Chauvin”. The plan is expected to be accepted without issue.

Lacan’s former student and analysand, now turned life coach, Stuart Schneiderman, published his The Last Psychoanalyst in June. The book is largely a polemic against psychoanalysis and given this is ground well-trodden during the Freud Wars, Schneiderman’s contribution seems somewhat dated from the outset. For those interested in Lacan’s work it is chiefly of interest from a historical perspective. Schneiderman was in analysis with Lacan in the 1970s where he was one of only a few Americans to travel to Paris to be trained by Lacan. His earlier books, most notably his chronicle of Lacan’s final years, Jacques Lacan: Death of an Intellectual Hero, written when he was still in the psychoanalytic fold, ooze with fascinating detail about how Lacan worked. In Returning to Freud there is even a transcript of one of Lacan’s sessions with a psychotic patient. However only the last four chapters of this latest book deal directly with Lacan and Lacanian psychoanalysis. When it comes to the views on the subject, half of his criticisms of Lacan are indirect, concealed criticisms of French philosophy; the other half are attacks based on quite facile generalisations of psychoanalysis rather than engagement with Lacan’s theory. This is a shame given the quality of Schneiderman’s theoretical contributions whilst part of the psychoanalytic world.

The École de la Cause freudienne is preparing for an event on 15th and 16th November on ‘Being a Mother’ as part of its Journées series. Preparatory work accelerated in June and produced, most notably, a French-language directory of citations from Freud, Lacan and others on motherhood thanks to the hard work of Michel Grollier and Michel Héraud. The conference itself will take place in Paris and look at topics that have come to especial prominence as a result of the debate around psychoanalytic interventions on autism, such as the demand and desire of the infant, and maternal language. More information is available on the Journées site here.

The Lacan circle of Melbourne will host a seminar with Marie-Hélène Brousse on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th July on ‘New Disorders of Love’. The session will look at this topic from the two angles: ‘Love in the time of the ones alone “Uns-tout-seuls” : The triumph of bachelors’ and ‘Is love an addiction like any other ? Pornographic life’. Full details and how to register on the group’s site here.

Video of Jacques B. Siboni’s excellent lecture on the relationship between signifiers and signifieds in the context of parapraxes (Freudian slips), first recorded in April 2013, now has English subtitles added to it. Watch it on YouTube.

A new Working Group, ‘Interrogating Freud and Lacan’ was announced in June. Taking place in London and organised by Julia Evans of LacanianWorks.net and Bruno de Florence, meetings will commence in September and run until July 2015. More details on the flyer here.

The Irish Circle of the Lacanian Orientation, part of the NLS, has released its Programme for the year 2014/15. It commences on 13th September with a talk by Eric Laurent on ‘Psychoanalysis and the Cognitive Paradigm’, ahead of the English language publication of his book, Lost in Cognition. A flyer for the session is here; check the group’s Facebook page for further updates.
Thanks also to Stephen McCoy for this report on the Irish Circle of the Lacanian Orientation’s Special Interest Group seminar in May, on child and adolescent analysis, with Neus Carbonell.

Got news? Get in touch.