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Lacan and the Subject of Language
Lacan and the Subject of Language presents a foray into the complex and various teachings of Jacques Lacan. These new essays shed light on Lacan's innovative theories of what "language" is and what "the subject" is. Although derived from the work of one single figure, these essays present the remarkbale diversity of Lacanian analysis. A major contribution to the new reception of Jacques Lacan in the English-speakin g world ( la nouvelle psychoanalyse), Lacan and the Subject of Language will challenge those who believe that they have already "mastered" Lacanian thought.
Jacques-Alain Miller, Henry W. Sullivan, Ellie Ragland, Lila Kalinich, Russell Grigg, Willy Apollon, Judith Miller, Stuart Schneiderman, Colette Soler, Slavoj Zizek.
Jacques-Alain Miller, Henry W. Sullivan, Ellie Ragland, Lila Kalinich, Russell Grigg, Willy Apollon, Judith Miller, Stuart Schneiderman, Colette Soler, Slavoj Zizek.
224 pages, Paperback
First published March 11, 1991
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July 4, 2018
Lacan and the Subject of Language boasts a star-studded line-up of writers on Lacan, from Jacques-Alain Miller (Lacan's son-in-law and legal heir) to Russell Grigg (one of the best translators of Lacan into English) to Slavoj Žižek (whose star has since risen to make him one of the leading theorists writing today).
The collection came out at a time when the star of high theory had not yet begun to wane, when books like this were a dime a dozen - I know, because I have recently been reading my way through a bunch of them. The quality of the essays collected here is reasonably even in quality (not surprising, given the star power of the contributors), but there is nothing, at the same time, that stands out as particularly innovative and surprising.
In part, I would attribute that shortcoming to the book's choice of topic, which to me tends to limit the discussion to the structuralist-linguistic aspects of the early-to-middle periods of Lacan's work. Indeed, Žižek does his best to toe the line, at first, and then only later breaks with these language-bound constraints by appealing to the notion of symptom/sinthome that emerges in the later work of Lacan. I would love to have seen more such inventiveness in this collection, but the other pieces were largely academic and very, very serious.
The collection came out at a time when the star of high theory had not yet begun to wane, when books like this were a dime a dozen - I know, because I have recently been reading my way through a bunch of them. The quality of the essays collected here is reasonably even in quality (not surprising, given the star power of the contributors), but there is nothing, at the same time, that stands out as particularly innovative and surprising.
In part, I would attribute that shortcoming to the book's choice of topic, which to me tends to limit the discussion to the structuralist-linguistic aspects of the early-to-middle periods of Lacan's work. Indeed, Žižek does his best to toe the line, at first, and then only later breaks with these language-bound constraints by appealing to the notion of symptom/sinthome that emerges in the later work of Lacan. I would love to have seen more such inventiveness in this collection, but the other pieces were largely academic and very, very serious.
Displaying 1 of 1 review