Reading Seminar XI( Lacan's Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis( The Paris Seminars in English)[READING SEMINAR XI][Paperback]

by RichardFeldstein

Reading Seminar XI( Lacan's Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis( The Paris Seminars in English) <> Paperback <> RichardFeldstein <> StateUniversityofNewYorkPress

Genres: Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, Psychology

Paperback

First published December 1, 1994

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm trying to churn through a bunch of overdue reviews today and there seems to be something in common between all the volumes of Lacaniana: breadth and no depth. But as with any clarification, there is some to be understumbled here, amid what appears to be (archly French?) competitive understatement. Brousse's entries on the drive stood out to me. Almost everyone included here has books and essays elsewhere to be much preferred. It's best to simply tangle assholes with la con himself, second best is single-minded secondary literature, and a last resort to endure the vagaries of collections.

[Peter Mathews · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seminar XI was the first text by Lacan that I ever read. I still remember the photocopied pages I had from the chapters dealing with alienation and the "subject who is supposed to know," two of Lacan's very best ideas. Alongside Seminar VII (on ethics), Seminar XI is, for me, represents the very best of Lacan's work.

This collection starts off with a bang. The introduction by Jacques-Alain Miller - whom I normally don't like - is superb. Seminar XI was the first seminar that Miller attended, before he became Lacan's son-in-law and leading acolyte, and he recalls crucial details about the context and historical importance of that particular year for Lacan's career. More than that, Miller actually provides some genuinely crucial insights into some of the theoretical developments from that seminar, especially his comments on Lacan's innovative separation of transference and repetition. The introduction is, in short, quite brilliant, and eclipses everything else in the book.

Unfortunately, the rest of the collection is kind of a mess. What I really wanted was a contextual and critical analysis of the seminar's main ideas in a similar to what Roudinesco achieves in outlining the various intellectual influences on Lacan in her biography. Such a task would no doubt have had far more coherence if done by a single author, whereas the various authors in this book seem to take whatever angle they choose.

Some of the authors, it is true, do focus on key concepts: Éric Laurent talks about alienation and separation, for example, and Colette Soler looks at the concept of subject and other, but there is a repeated sense that these authors are just nibbling around the edges of these concepts rather than digging into them deeply.

Even less appropriate to this book, in my opinion, were the various attempts to "apply" the ideas from Lacan's seminar to outside texts, whether it was Richard Feldstein's reading of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass or Slavoj Žižek's analysis of David Lynch. Such interpretations took focus away from the actual significance of Lacan's seminar.

The other thing that was sorely missing from this collection was a discussion of the "subject who is supposed to know" - this is perhaps my favorite Lacanian concept, and a crucial one for his critique of authority, especially with regard to the analyst's desire. It is unbelievable that it was so neglected here.

Apart from Miller's excellent introduction, then, Reading Seminar XI is a true disappointment. Perhaps it was always going to be that way, given that the heterogeneity of its authors could hardly provide the coherent commentary this seminar deserves, but I suspect it could nonetheless have been done better, at least, than this.

[Mateus Odilon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Os artigos do início e do fim do livro são interessantes e ajudam a elucidar algo sobre a teoria de Lacan. No miolo do livro no entanto têm alguns textos bastante cansativos e em que não consegui entender o objetivo dos autores, por exemplo um imenso e muito repetitivo sobre o Alice no País das Maravilhas.

Peguei esse livro, no entanto, com um propósito específico de ler os textos da Anne Dunand sobre o fim da análise e achei bastante úteis.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you ever have to read Lacan... USE THIS!!!

[Slava Skobeloff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, so, I assume if you're picking this book up that's because you're trying to work through Lacan's Seminar XI. My advice for you is that you should still read this book but don't be fooled--this won't help you get at the essence of what Lacan says in the seminar. Not at all.

All of the essays, with the exception of a couple--for example, certain essays don't seem to reference the Seminar at all, but rather does with constant references to the Écrits and other tedious analogies to cinema or literature. It is therefore NOT in any sense a close reading nor a clear explanation of the concepts listed in the Seminar XI.

Your only hope of getting anything out of this book is essentially by tracing some of the lectures and finding relevant sections in the book, but even this is quite difficult. A lot of the essays remain on the surface--for example, Éric Laurent's two sections on subject and alienation, in my opinion the best ones from the book, wilfully leave out Lacan's highly lucid comparison to 'your money or your life!' but instead he chooses to talk about some case study that's never referenced in the primary text itself.

It becomes more and more clear to me that if one wants a true explication of Lacan's ideas they are better off leaving the Seminars for now and consulting with secondary companions to the Écrits and simply reading those instead. Whilst I know that adding a detailed commentary to his seminars is rather a monumental, and in all likelihood a potentially impossible task, there was still so much room for improvement. I have attempted by best to get something out of this dreadful book but all I have gotten out of it is the realisation that I am better off reading his Écrits.

For all the students of Lacan--ignore this text, and preferably ignore any of the 'Reading Seminar...' books because from my short, cursory reading of Bruce Fink's text on Seminar XX it seems to have the exact same problems (unsurprising, considering Fink's discussion of 'psychoanalysis and science' in this book was one of the least helpful and unimportant in my opinion). Instead, go read Fink's introductions to Lacan and then start reading the Écrits--you will get a much better grasp of Lacan through his essays there.

2/5

[Trenton Class]

As a whole I'd say half of these essays didn't speak a word to me, but a few were immensely clarifying of what Lacan is up to. Really liked the Fink, Miller, and Collette Soler contributions. The pieces of Alienation and Separation were helpful.

[Jessica Zu · Rating 2 out of 5]

So happy that I don't have to read this shit anymore. 大家都说屁是香的，屁就变成香的了。