This collection is the first extended interrogation in any language of Jacques Lacan's Seminar XVII. Originally delivered just after the Paris uprisings of May 1968, Seminar XVII marked a turning point in Lacan's thought; it was both a step forward in the psychoanalytic debates and an important contribution to social and political issues. Collecting important analyses by many of the major Lacanian theorists and practitioners, this anthology is at once an introduction, critique, and extension of Lacan's influential ideas.

The contributors examine Lacan's theory of the four discourses, his critique of the Oedipus complex and the superego, the role of primal affects in political life, and his prophetic grasp of twenty-first-century developments. They take up these issues in detail, illuminating the Lacanian concepts with in-depth discussions of shame and guilt, literature and intimacy, femininity, perversion, authority and revolt, and the discourse of marketing and political rhetoric. Topics of more specific psychoanalytic interest include the role of objet a, philosophy and psychoanalysis, the status of knowledge, and the relation between psychoanalytic practices and the modern university.

Contributors. Geoff Boucher, Marie-Helene Brousse, Justin Clemens, Mladen Dolar, Oliver Feltham, Russell Grigg, Pierre-Gilles Gueguen, Dominique Hecq, Dominiek Hoens, Eric Laurent, Juliet Flower MacCannell, Jacques-Alain Miller, Ellie Ragland, Matthew Sharpe, Paul Verhaeghe, Slavoj Zizek, Alenka Zupancic

Major Lacanian theorists and practitioners provide an introduction to and critique of Jacques Lacan's influential Seminar XVII

About the Author

Justin Clemens is Senior Lecturer in Literature and Psychoanalytic Studies at Deakin University in Australia. He is the author of The Romanticism of Contemporary Theory and a coauthor of Avoiding the Subject.

Russell Grigg is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Psychoanalytic Studies at Deakin University. He is a coeditor of Female Sexuality: The Early Psychoanalytic Controversies and the translator of Lacan's Seminar XVII (forthcoming).

Book Information
ISBN 9780822337195
Author Justin Clemens
Format Paperback
Page Count 344
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 472g