Lacan and the Political

by Yannis Stavrakakis

The work of Jacques Lacan is second only to Freud in its impact on psychoanalysis. Yannis Stavrakakis clearly examines Lacan's challenging views on time, history, language, alterity, desire and sexuality from a political standpoint. It is the first book to provide an overview of the social and political implications of Lacan's work as a whole for students coming to Lacan for the first time.
The first part of Lacan and the Political offers a straightforward and systematic assessment of the importance of Lacan's categories and theoretical constructions for concrete political analysis. The second half of the book applies Lacanian theory to specific examples of widely discussed political issues, such as Green ideology, the question of democracy and the hegemony of advertising in contemporary culture.

Genres: Psychoanalysis, Psychology, Nonfiction, Politics, Philosophy

200 pages, Paperback

First published May 8, 1999

Reviews

[Owlseyes · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://imgur.com/a/Q133g62

"L’inconscient, c’est la politique"
J. Lacan

« C’est en cela que consiste spécifiquement la politique : elle est le lieu d’une fracture de la vérité» Marcel Gauchet

Around one hundred pages on the Lacanian subject and the Lacanian object, out of nearly 200 pages. Those one hundred pages are well written and faithful to the Lacanian views. But the rest has few examples on politics (maybe that one on South African apartheid is an exception) and, on the "political" aspect, the concept of democracy is pervasive, I would say. Stavrakakis' ("radical") democracy concept is a left-wing one. (Just check the number of times he quotes Ernesto Laclau*).

Politics is still, in great part, unconscious, in this book.

* a somehow enthusiast regarding Hugo Chavez, and a believer in the spreading of the "pink wave" throughout Latin America. Quite recently, J. Milei, and others, proved him wrong.

[Jerrett Lyday · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lacan and the Political is really just ok. Stavrakakis does a better job than Zizek in explicating some of Lacan's theoretical ideas and their application to society and politics, but with the caveat that he presupposes his readers already have a very basic understanding of Lacan's theory. Do not expect this book to be and introduction to Lacan, because it isn't, and if you go into it with little to no understanding of Lacan it will be impossible to glean anything from it.

I did not enjoy Stavrakakis' conclusions, specifically his work in chapter five on Radical Democracy. It just wasn't very good in that it felt like it was lacking (no pun intended). I also just don't really think that Lacanian Theory WORKS in conjunction with radical democracy, and while I understand how someone could find it applicable, I suspect that it is largely a misreading of the Lacanian Feminine.

Overall, chapters 1-4 were pretty good, chapter 5 felt almost premature and hastily developed. I wasn't satisfied with it at all.

Worth a read, but don't put too much stock in the end game.

[Sara-Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

neat. a clear and, dare I say, pragmatic (characteristics i haven't been known to find especially seductive) exploration of this notoriously abstruse thinker. That this can be done without vulgarizing the theory too bad was for me a mini-revelation itself. Thanks Stavrakakis. The orientation of this book was different than that of, say, fink's intros to lacan in that, as the title suggests, this is geared towards explicitly elucidating the political implications of Lacan's project, rather than for use by anlaysts specifically.

[Bryan]

Excellent introduction and elaboration: Lacan is an inherently difficult writer to understand; Stavrakakis provides one of the most lucid introduction to his ideas, serving to ground in clear terms the applicability of Lacanian concepts to the political and the social. While I have some disagreements with his elaborations and conclusions, these stem more from the breadth of my own developed Lacanian education- entirelly thanks to Stavrakakis- rather than what I initially brought to the experience of reading this fine text.

[Mitchell Chatfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

• meanders between excellent and tangent
• plenty of terminological development - point de capiton; the real; the Other etc
— political v politics explanation felt garbled
— point de capiton explanation was very good
• starts with semiotic incompleteness, and builds upwards and outwards from there
• if the last few pages weren’t responding to niche critiques that didn’t feel overly in line with the rest of the chapter (the positions of other authors wasn’t well contrasted) I think 3.5-3.75 stars is more apt
• exploring democracy and paving way for radical democratic theory

[Farshad · Rating 5 out of 5]

این کتاب را با ترجمه ی عالی محمد علی جعفری خوندم. برای ورود به بعد جامعه شناسی ِ روانشناسی ِ لاکان، کتاب خوبی است ( در واقع تنها کتابی که به فارسی ترجمه شده ). نویسنده ی کتاب هم یکی از تئوری پردازهای علوم سیاسی در یونان است

[Naeem · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully clear and reader-friendly book on (1) Lacan's thought/practice, and (2) the implications for social sciences.

I plan to use this at the undergraduate level.