In this first English translation of a classic text by one of the foremost commentators on Lacan's work, Nasio eloquently demonstrates the clinical and practical import of Lacan's theory, even in its most difficult or obscure moments.
Addresses the limits in treating pain psychoanalytically, and offers a phenomenological description of psychic pain, particularly the pain of a lost loved one.
An introduction to literary theory unlike any other, Ten Lessons in Theory engages its readers with three fundamental premises. The first premise is that a genuinely productive understanding of theory depends upon a considerably more sustained encounter with the foundational writings of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud than any reader is likely to get from the introductions to theory that are currently available. The second premise involves what Fredric Jameson describes as "the conviction that of all the writing called theoretical, Lacan's is the richest." Entertaining this conviction, the book pays more (and more careful) attention to the richness of Lacan's writing than does any other introduction to literary theory. The third and most distinctive premise of the book is that literary theory isn't simply theory "about" literature, but that theory fundamentally is literature, after all. Ten Lessons in Theory argues, and even demonstrates, that "theoretical writing" is nothing if not a specific genre of "creative writing," a particular way of engaging in the art of the sentence, the art of making sentences that make trouble sentences that make, or desire to make, radical changes in the very fabric of social reality. As its title indicates, the book proceeds in the form of ten "lessons," each based on an axiomatic sentence selected from the canon of theoretical writing. Each lesson works by creatively unpacking its featured sentence and exploring the sentence's conditions of possibility and most radical implications. In the course of exploring the conditions and consequences of these troubling sentences, the ten lessons work and play together to articulate the most basic assumptions and motivations supporting theoretical writing, from its earliest stirrings to its most current turbulences. Provided in each lesson is a working glossary: specific critical keywords are boldfaced on their first appearance and defined either in the text or in a footnote. But while each lesson constitutes a precise explication of the working terms and core tenets of theoretical writing, each also attempts to exemplify theory as a "practice of creativity" (Foucault) in itself.
Lacan, Discourse, Event: New Psychoanalytic Approaches to Textual Indeterminacy is an introduction to the emerging field of Lacanian Discourse Analysis. It includes key papers that lay the foundations for this research, and worked examples from analysts working with a range of different texts. The editors Ian Parker and David Pavón-Cuéllar begin with an introduction which reviews the key themes in discourse analysis and the problems faced by researchers in that field of work including an overview of the development of discourse analysis in different disciplines (psychology, sociology, cultural studies and political and social theory). They also set out the conceptual and methodological principles of Lacan's work insofar as it applies to the field of discourse. Ian Parker and David Pavón-Cuéllar have divided the book into three main sections. The first section comprises previously published papers, some not yet available in English, which set out the foundations for 'Lacanian Discourse Analysis'. The chapters establish the first lines of research, and illustrate how Lacanian psychoanalysis is transformed into a distinctive approach to interpreting text when it is taken out of the clinical domain. The second and third parts of the book comprise commissioned papers in which leading researchers from across the social sciences, from the English-speaking world and from continental Europe and Latin America, show how Lacanian Discourse Analysis works in practice. Lacan, Discourse, Event: New Psychoanalytic Approaches to Textual Indeterminacy is intended to be a definitive volume bringing together writing from the leaders in the field of Lacanian Discourse Analysis working in the English-speaking world and in countries where Lacanian psychoanalysis is part of mainstream clinical practice and social theory. It will be of particular interest to psychoanalysts of different traditions, to post-graduate and undergraduate researchers in psycho-social studies, cultural studies, sociology and social anthropology.
After Lacan combines abundant case material with graceful yet sophisticated theoretical exposition in order to explore the clinical practice of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Focusing on the groundbreaking clinical treatment of psychosis that Gifric (Groupe Interdisciplinaire Freudien de Recherches et d'Interventions Cliniques et Culturelles) has pioneered in Quebec, the authors discuss how Lacanians theorize psychosis and how Gifric has come to treat it analytically. Chapters are devoted to the general concepts and key terms that constitute the touchstones of the early phase of analytic treatment, elaborating their interrelations and their clinical relevance. The second phase of analytic treatment is also discussed, introducing a new set of terms to understand transference and the ethical act of analysis in the subject's assumption of the Other's lack. The concluding chapters broaden discussion to include the key psychic structures that describe the organization of subjectivity and thereby dictate the terms of analysis: not just psychosis, but also perversion and obsessional and hysterical neurosis.
This book is an invaluable reference guide for students of literary and cultural studies which introduces over forty of the complex terms, motifs and concepts in literary and cultural theory today. Critical Keywords in Literary and Cultural Theory - Gives students a brief introduction to each concept together with short quotations from the work of key thinkers and critics to stimulate discussion and guide genuine comprehension - Supplies helpful glosses and annotations for each term, concept or keyword which is discussed - Offers reflective, practical questions at the end of each entry to direct the student to consider a particular aspect of the quotations and the concept they address - Provides explanatory notes and bibliographies to aid further research This essential volume is ideal as both a dip-in reference book and a guide to literary theory for practical classroom use.
Ian Parker has been a leading light in the fields of critical and discursive psychology for over 25 years. The Psychology After Critique series brings together for the first time his most important papers. Each volume in the series has been prepared by Ian Parker and presents a newly written introduction and focused overview of a key topic area. Psychology After Lacan is the sixth volume in the series and addresses three central questions: Why is Lacanian psychoanalysis re-emerging in mainstream contemporary psychology? What is original in this account of the human subject? What implications does Lacanian psychoanalysis have for psychology? This book introduces Lacan’s influential ideas about clinical psychoanalysis and contemporary global culture to a new generation of psychologists. The chapters cover a number of key themes including conceptions of the human subject within psychology, the uses of psychoanalysis in qualitative research, different conceptions of ethics within psychology, and the impact of cyberspace on human subjectivity. The book also explores key debates currently occurring in Lacanian psychoanalysis, with discussion of culture, discourse, identification, sexuality and the challenge to mainstream notions of normality and abnormality. Psychology After Lacan is essential reading for students and researchers in psychology, psycho-social studies, sociology, social anthropology and cultural studies, and to psychoanalysts of different traditions engaged in academic research. It will also introduce key ideas and debates within critical psychology to undergraduates and postgraduate students across the social sciences.
This collection of specially commissioned essays by academics and practising psychoanalysts, first published in 2003, explores key dimensions of Jacques Lacan's life and works. Lacan is renowned as a theoretician of psychoanalysis whose work is still influential in many countries. He refashioned psychoanalysis in the name of philosophy and linguistics at the time when it underwent a certain intellectual decline. Advocating a 'return to Freud', by which he meant a close reading in the original of Freud's works, he stressed the idea that the unconscious functions 'like a language'. All essays in this Companion focus on key terms in Lacan's often difficult and idiosyncratic developments of psychoanalysis. This volume will bring fresh, accessible perspectives to the work of this formidable and influential thinker. These essays, supported by a useful chronology and guide to further reading will prove invaluable to students and teachers alike.
In recent years psychoanalysis - especially Lacanian theory - has been gradually acknowledged as a vital resource in the ongoing re-orientation of contemporary political theory and analysis. Of particular note is that the work of Jacques Lacan is increasingly being used by major political philosophers associated with the Left. This indicates the dynamic emergence of a new theoretico-political horizon: that of the 'Lacanian Left'. However, this has yet to be properly conceived and structured as a field. The Lacanian Left is the first book to bring it into academic consciousness and to draw its implications for concrete political analysis in a systematic way. It offers: An accessible mapping of its main contours. A detailed examination of the points of convergence and divergence between the major figures active or at the periphery of this terrain, including Slavoj h the central Lacanian notion of 'enjoyment', The Lacanian Left puts forward innovative analyses of political power and authority, nationalism, European identity, consumerism and advertising culture, de-democratisation and post-democracy. It will be of value to everyone interested in exploring the potential of psychoanalysis to reinvigorate political theory, critical political analysis and democratic politics.
Each volume of the Dictionary of World Biography contains 250 entries on the lives of the individuals who shaped their times and left their mark on world history. This is not a who's who. Instead, each entry provides an in-depth essay on the life and career of the individual concerned. Essays commence with a quick reference section that provides basic facts on the individual's life and achievements. The extended biography places the life and works of the individual within an historical context, and the summary at the end of each essay provides a synopsis of the individual's place in history. All entries conclude with a fully annotated bibliography.