Lacan For Beginners [Paperback] [Jan 01, 2002] Philip Hill

Writers & Readers Documentary Comic Book #69

by Philip Hill

The documentary comic books of the for beginners series deal with complex and serious subjects they attempt to intimidate and uncomplicated the great ideas and work of great thinkers the movements and concepts dealt with are placed in their historical, political and intellectual contexts the books are painstakingly researched, humorously written and enlivened with classic comic-strip illustrations, photographs, paintings, etc the range of subjects covered is truly vast and varied—malcom x and the new age guru castenanda, shakespeare and foucault, jewish holocaust and arab and israel, structuralism and biology

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Nonfiction, Graphic Novels

Unknown Binding

First published July 1, 1997

Reviews

[Siobhan Seigne]

This could have used a proofreader

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

this is perhaps the worst introduction to Lacan i've ever seen. this book is full of obvious (and, from a theoretical point of view, damagingly obfuscating) over-simplifications and interpretive paraphrase. even the other cartoon book about Lacan ("Introducing Lacan") is better, though it's not that great. for decent and rigorous, yet still approachable and accessible introductions to Lacan's thinking, might i recommend Bruce Fink's books ("The Lacanian Subject" for theoretical framework, "A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis" for a look at clinical practice), or Slavoj Zizek's "How to Read Lacan" for an avowedly non-clinical approach to Lacan as a framework for cultural analysis.

[Jiang Qin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short book took me 6 hours to finish, huh. It’s full of solid ideas and reasonable knowledge.
It’s about physio analysis. I should read it again when I raise a child as it provides many practical methods, such as:
1) delay satisfaction of baby will force them to learn language fast
2) unable to provide everything they need is necessary for them to discover their own desire
3) they need a symbolic father, which is distracting their mom’s love, to get repressed and learn independence
4) they often claim things that their moms can’t provide. Explains why poor children claimed money, rich kids claimed respect for wearing rugged clothes… I should never give them too much to torture myself😂

Many other wisdoms about psychosis. I am hysteria, always thinking others want something from me.😅. And I also can understand some spoiled boys who lack male adult regulation are pervert…

Also very genius idea about gender differences, concluding neither heterosexual nor homosexual have rapport.😃 there’s not thing as sexual relationships: so bold saying.

In spite of so many advances,psychoanalysis only help you understand but don’t help you get good behaviour. Thus I would call it modern rubbish research 😊. You can not get happiness from it if you really have a problem. I would rather my children strong enough to in good autonomous behaviour rather than knowing so much but miserable

[Ammar · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Life is a pathological disease, and death is the cure."
A good starting point to understand the work of Lacan.

[Magdalena · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty silly but surprisingly interesting way to look at some complicated ideas. Re-affirmed my thought that Lacan was a total asshole.

[Vikram X · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this was for beginners, dread to think what "Lacan for experts" entails ! Like Freud , Lacan further threads down the rabbit hole deep within the recesses of the human mind ; introducing concepts like the child & the "Mirror Stage" , the "Other", Phallus complex and more .
No question that he's on to something, having to deal with a toddler myself – I can attest to certain aspects of his psychoanalytic observations; however, things get weird pretty fast; Also, the use of mathematics seemed to me like a desperate attempt to legitimize his work.

[Jacob J · Rating 2 out of 5]

The 2 stars isn't an attack on Lacanian thinking - like anybody, he has his merits and his pitfalls - I just don't think the book is very good.

It's just super basic and super corny.

If you're an outright beginner to the ideas of psychoanalysis this would probably be a helpful introduction, but for anything deeper you won't find it in this superficial text.

From zero, it's a good a place as any to start, I suppose.

[mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a beginner I find it quite useful, however, some key ideas were not entirely and clearly introduced which I assume left for further reading on the subject.

[Xavier Mattison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I see why this could be frustrating to an actual scholar but powering through this for an hour or two is superior to watching a video about the guy on youtube IMO

[Hayden · Rating 5 out of 5]

My only issue is that some things are not explained very well. But maybe it is just my comprehension.

[Cornelius · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great introduction for beginners. I think there is a lot more to the topic and it would be best to do some further reading of Lacan. This book just scratches the surface in an easy to read and understand fashion. Definitely would recommend to anyone who is not aware of the work of Lacan. I wasn't aware of his thought before reading and his ideas are quite extraordinary.

[Mengting]

nothing noteworthy

[Jesse Field · Rating 2 out of 5]

All of these "for beginners" titles are worth reading, I think, though the level of artistic and literary talent varies tremendously. The best ones, like Rius' Marx, are by comics artists who understand how to dramatize a concept with drawn characters having dialogue. The art of this one smacks of an overworked adjunct doing it the night before with MS Word clip art. Most of it is just so-so writing simply stuck into the mouth of a bad drawing of Lacan, or perhaps Freud, or perhaps a chair or a bird. There's very little motion, and as a result so little life to the art, that the brief overview of Lacan's terms and concepts, while satisfactory, might almost as well have been delivered as bullet points on a memo pad.

Weak.

[Renee Leech · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have owned and read this book several times since 1997, when I was first studying Lacan in grad school. I love the "For Beginners" series from Writers and Readers Press, but in the case of Lacan, I only recommend this book as a supplement to his actual work, taught under the guidance of a skilled professor. In the U.S., most students are only taught about "the mirror stage," which is fascinating enough, but there is so much more to Lacan than that. If you have ever experienced unrequited love or unmet desire, Lacan's theories will provide a framework through which you can understand your suffering. That, I think, is his greatest contribution to modern psychology.

[Maggie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is not a good place for beginners (like me) to start. I have some familiarity with Freud and a little with French language theory, but this book oversimplifies. In addition, it has a polemic approach, aiming to show that Lacan is the "true" interpreter of Freud. There are many branches of post-Freudian psychoanalytic thought, and polemics don't help me to understand them. Still, since Lacan is reputedly near impossible to read in the original, this short comic-style book is worth a try.

[Oliver Ho · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had higher hopes for this book. It had interesting moments, but it was poorly-written in many of the most important parts, dealing with key concepts that would return throughout the book. I appreciated the attempts at humour and simplicity, and the difficulty of the subject, but this was disappointing. However, I can imagine returning to this book to refresh myself on certain ideas in the future.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

My wonderful, short-attention-span husband, owns the entire "For Beginners" series. I have heard that Lacan's writing is generally impenetrable (and he has a wretched TV presence), so this is a great little read for people like me, who like pictures and short sentences, but who like to sound erudite (or pompous) in conversation.

[Meagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

if you've got to read Lacan, this will help you through it

[Jt Taylor]

This will help you get through Lacan, whose work is notoriously difficult.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though there may be better introductions that do historical figures such as Lacan justice (and the cartoons were oftentimes foolish and unnecessary), I quite enjoyed this book.

[Brent]

I love Beginners books.