5/28/2023 0 Comments Slavoj žižek how to read lacanIn seminars, Lacan acts as analysand, he “freely associates,” improvises, jumps, addressing his public, which is thus put into the role of a kind of collective analyst. In fact, Lacan’s seminars and ecrits relate like analysand’s and analyst’s speech in the treatment. It is as if Lacan first directly develops a certain theoretical line in a straightforward way, with all oscillations and blind alleys, and then goes on to condense the result in precise, but compressed ciphers. The paradox pointed out by Jean-Claude Milner is that, in contrast to the usual way of opposing the secret oral teaching to the printed publications for the common people, Lacan’s ecrits are “elitist,” readable only to an inner circle, while his seminars are destined for the large public and, as such, much more accessible. “If one disregards occasional short texts (introductions and afterwords, transcribed improvised interventions and interviews, etc.), Lacan’s oeuvre clearly falls into two groups: seminars (conducted every week during the school-year from 1953 till Lacan’s death, in front of an ever larger public) and é’crits (written theoretical texts). Rather than attempt to summarize and paraphrase what others have said, this post simply offers the following advice/ guidance from the introduction from Slavoj Zizek’s How to Read Lacan. Like desiring itself, one has to be taught how to read Lacan.
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