TE917 Lacan ThePurloinedLetter

7/31/2019 TE917 Lacan ThePurloinedLetter

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TE917 Thanhs Notes

I do not understand what Lacan means.


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Questions for/about Reading

Background

Seminar on the Purloined Letter




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Lacan doesnt intend to be understood... He

designs his seminars so that you cant, in fact,

grasp them.

Alan Sheridan, Lacan

s English translator



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For comprehension, inspiration or application?

I do NOT read to understand what Lacan means.

I read for pleasure. I could possibly use Lacans language for my own

intellectual project (not to follow his).

I should be able to participate in Lacan- related

discourses.



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How am I personally connected to Lacan?

What have others spoken about Lacan?

Why do many scholars draw on Lacan?

How do I position myself in Lacan- related discourses?

I read not onlyLacans texts but also my experienceand what others have spoken about Lacan. These

readings are inseparable.



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Creative act

Equality between the writer and the reader



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Background





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Theory of repression (first formalized by Freud) We have deep feelings about which we tend not to be aware

because those feelings are pushed down or buried deep in therecesses of our minds.

Feelings get repressed when they are too painful or tooembarrassing for us to think about.

We are not conscious of our most personal desires and fearsbecause those feelings have been 'repressed' (unconscious)rather than confronted (conscious).

Fendler (2010, p. 21)

The unconscious holds a bigger picture than that retainedby the conscious self.

Against rational consciousness and free will



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Jung Dreams, symbols, the language of archetypes

Freud

Motivational behavior and accidental slips of thetongue

Lacan Not that of the self, but of the Other

The unconscious is the discourse of the Other.



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The Other is everything that lies beyond theboundaries of ourselves.

We define and redefine ourselves through the existenceof the Other.

We understand the world through the language

(discourse) of the Other.

We also use that language for our innermost thoughts.

THE UNCONSCIOUS IS THE DISCOURSE OF THE OTHER.



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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lacan


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Maternal penis: an apparatus which enables the firstencounter with otherness and lackwhen the childsenses that s/he is not the mothers entireworld.

The child wishes to be thephallus for the mother.

Phallus: sign ofabsence, signifier of all signifiers,keystone ofsymbolic order, signifier of impossibility tofind a final meaning, unity, presence (annulment of

signified).



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'It is up to you to be Lacanians if you wish. I am aFreudian

Whereas Freud could still be said to work within anempirical, humanist tradition that still believes in a stableself's ability to access the "truth," Lacan is post-structuralist, which is to say that Lacan questions anysimple notion of either "self" or "truth," exploring insteadhow knowledge is constructed by way of linguistic and

ideological structures that organize not only our consciousbut also our unconscious lives.



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Lacan's theory is similar to Lvi-Strauss's structuralismin the distinction it draws between the imaginary, thesymbolic, and the real: the proper object of study issomething that is abstract - an invisible layer thatunderlies the world we can see, hear, smell, taste, andexperience.

Fendler, L. (2010, p. 22)



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Foucault's work challenged the structuralist langueand the Lacanian real.

He criticized all theories that make things seemnatural or inevitable. The unconscious, as posited by psychoanalytic theory,

might impose a kind of inevitability in so far as Lacan'stheory insists that we cannot access the unconscious,critique it, or change it.

Fendler (2010)



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Derridas framing Lacan: Lacan forces design intodestiny.

Derrida and Lacan: Another Writing by MichealLewis- Useful links: Introduction

Downloadable full text (Are you ready to be copywrong or copyleft?)

http://books.google.com/books/about/Derrida_and_Lacan.html?id=5PNS4BF_xCwChttps://rapidshare.com/https://rapidshare.com/http://books.google.com/books/about/Derrida_and_Lacan.html?id=5PNS4BF_xCwC


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Judith Butler (1956), Hlne Cixous (1937), LuceIrigaray (1930) and Julia Kristeva (1941) draw heavily onLacan for different projects.



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Background





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Narrative form status quo status quo is threatened status quo is

restored

Function of the characters

the good detective must be rational, and act in thename of order the villain must be punished, or gain nothing from his

acts

Binary opposites



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The purloined letter symbolizes regret for missingmaternal penis and reproach for its loss.

The relationship between Dupin and the minister: son& father(Oedipal struggle).

At the end Dupin restores missing penis.



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The purloined letter

Phallus

Empty, slippery, floating signifier (No one knows thecontents of the letter)

The signifier passes us and defines us

A theory of intersubjectivity: three roles = subjectpositions: the blind, the complacent seer, and the robber King (blind), Queen (complacent seer), Minister (robber)

Prefect, Minister, Dupin

Minister, Dupin, Lacan



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Background





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How would you read Seminar on thePurloined Letter if the text is considered asan empty floating signifier?

What is your creative interpretation ofSeminar on the Purloined Letter?


Documents

TE917 Lacan ThePurloinedLetter