Seminar XXVII
| Dissolution | |
|---|---|
| Seminar XXVII | |
| French Title | Dissolution |
| English Title | Dissolution |
| Seminar Information | |
| Seminar Date(s) | 1979–1980[1] |
| Session Count | 7+ sessions, culminating in July 1980[2] |
| Location | Paris & Caracas (occasionally international meetings)[3] |
| Psychoanalytic Content | |
| Key Concepts | Dissolution • Institutional rupture • End of seminar series • Freud and psychoanalysis • Transmission |
| Notable Themes | End of psychoanalytic institution; limits of analytic transmission; late Lacanian critique; dissolution of structures |
| Theoretical Context | |
| Period | Very late period |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | Seminar XXVI |
| Followed by | Seminar XXVIII |
Dissolution (Dissolution) is the twenty‑seventh seminar associated with Jacques Lacan, delivered across 1979–1980 and marking the culmination of his long series of annual seminars. It is distinctive in Lacan’s oeuvre for its explicit engagement with the dissolution of the École freudienne de Paris (Freudian School of Paris) and for functioning as a meditation on psychoanalytic institutions, transmission, and the limits of Lacan’s own seminar teaching. The seminar is not formally edited in the standard Éditions du Seuil “Champ freudien” series, and knowledge of it derives from unofficial transcripts, speeches, and circulating recordings. Consequently, much of the material has not appeared in a canonical book form.[1][2]
Unlike previous seminars, which were delivered as year‑long series of weekly lessons in Paris, ‘’Dissolution’’ encompasses a set of late interventions, speeches, and reflections—some given in Paris in early 1980 and others in international forums such as Caracas, Venezuela. These interventions foreground institutional rupture and the end of an era in Lacanian psychoanalysis, making the seminar a locus for late reflections on psychoanalytic practice, authority, and the fate of theory in the wake of institutional collapse. [3]
Historical and institutional context
The end of the École freudienne de Paris
By the late 1970s Lacan had for decades been a central figure in French psychoanalysis, attracting disciples and dissenters alike. The École freudienne de Paris (EFP), founded by Lacan in the 1960s after his break with the Société française de psychanalyse and the International Psychoanalytical Association, became a hub for Lacanian practice and teaching. However, tensions within the international psychoanalytic community, institutional disputes, and Lacan’s own health concerns culminated in his announcement of the dissolution of the EFP in early 1980.[4]
The seminar ‘’Dissolution’’ reflects this moment of institutional closure. Rather than a series of lessons organized around technical or conceptual developments, the seminar is largely occasioned by speeches and addresses concerning the EFP’s end and the implications of dissolving a major psychoanalytic institution. Lacan’s own words—often delivered at meetings or conferences—constitute the primary archival basis for the seminar’s reconstruction by scholars and translators. [1]
Context in Lacan’s late career
Lacan’s final years (1977–1981) were marked by several seminars that pushed beyond classical psychoanalytic topics into reflections on language, topology, conclusion, and institutional critique (such as *Seminar XXV: Le moment de conclure* and *Seminar XXVI: La topologie et le temps*). ‘’Dissolution’’ sits at the terminus of this trajectory, where the culmination of Lacan’s seminar series coincides with his own institutional and physical finitude: he died on 9 September 1981, little more than a year after the seminar’s principal moments. [1]
Composition and transmission
Because Seminar XXVII was not published in Seuil’s “Champ freudien” series, the materials that constitute its content circulate in a variety of formats:
- Transcriptions of speeches given in Paris in early 1980, including addresses at the PLM Saint‑Jacques Hotel where Lacan discussed the dissolution of the Freudian School. [4]
- Interventions recorded at international psychoanalytic meetings, such as the opening to the International Meeting of the Freudian Field in Caracas (12–15 July 1980). [3]
- Unofficial French transcripts and partial notes from sessions held between late 1979 and the summer of 1980. Some of these have been shared in psychoanalytic forums and repositories, though widely differing in quality and completeness. [1]
- Academic and enthusiast reconstructions that attempt to situate the seminar within Lacan’s late corpus. [2]
Scholars generally agree that the seminar includes at least seven dated moments—beginning with sessions in late 1979 and concluding with addresses in June–July 1980—though the precise number of lessons and their structure are irregular compared to Lacan’s classical year‑long seminars. [2]
Conceptual framework and methodology
Unlike most seminars in which Lacan elaborates psychoanalytic theory through a hermeneutic of clinical examples and conceptual progression, ‘’Dissolution’’ is predominantly reflective and retrospective. It uses moments of institutional rupture to probe the theoretical and clinical stakes of psychoanalysis at an historical juncture.
Where earlier seminars might use formal tools such as topological figures, the Real/Symbolic/Imaginary registers, or linguistic structures to explore the unconscious and subjective experience, this seminar reorients inquiry toward questions of transmission, authority, and the “end” of psychoanalytic institutions. The dissolution of the EFP becomes a site for thinking through questions of the fate of psychoanalytic knowledge, the role of the analyst beyond institutional frames, and the persistence of Lacan’s own conceptual legacy.
Methodologically, Lacan’s statements in this seminar often take the form of speeches delivered to audiences of analysts, students, and international delegates, rather than classroom lectures with systematic progression. In this sense the seminar resembles a series of public pronouncements or interventions assembled into a coherent corpus by later editors rather than a carefully scripted intellectual treatise.
Key themes and content
Institutional rupture and psychoanalytic order
A central theme of ‘’Dissolution’’ is the fracture of psychoanalytic institutional structures that had sustained Lacanian practice for decades. The announcement of the EFP’s dissolution is not merely administrative but bears theoretical and clinical implications: Lacan repeatedly reflects on what it means for a psychoanalytic school to end, how analytic teaching might survive without an institutional wrapper, and what responsibilities analysts carry beyond association membership or designation. [4]
This emphasis on institutional rupture resonates with Lacan’s broader critique of closure and finality in psychoanalytic work (cf. his earlier *Seminar XXV: Le moment de conclure*), where conclusion is always a moment of negotiation rather than a definitive endpoint.
Transmission beyond institution
A related theme is the question of analytic transmission: how psychoanalytic knowledge, technique, and ethos are passed from analyst to analyst and from generation to generation. Without the EFP as a container for such transmission, Lacan’s addresses in this seminar emphasize modes of continuity that exceed formal organizations—suggesting that analytic practice lives in speech, critique, and engagement rather than in bureaucratic structures.
Lacan’s reflections mirror broader debates in intellectual history about the preservation of thought beyond institutional frameworks: he insists that psychoanalysis, as a practice and theory, is not reducible to any single school or hierarchy, and that its vitality depends on the creative engagement of practitioners with its core insights.
Limits and endings
‘’Dissolution’’ explicitly foregrounds limits—the limit of an institution, of a seminar series, and, implicitly, of Lacan’s own life and work. This concern with ending resonates with Lacanian motifs of finitude, particularly his insistence in earlier seminars that psychoanalysis does not culminate in total mastery or closure but confronts the ever‑recurring problem of desire, language, and the Real.
The seminar thus invites analysts and scholars to reconsider what “ending” means in psychoanalytic practice: not the closing of questions but the opening of new fields of inquiry and responsibility.
Theoretical significance and clinical implications
Though the seminar is structurally irregular, its theoretical import lies in situating Lacan’s late thought within the context of institutional critique and reflexive practice. It challenges analysts to think beyond the confines of formal organizations and to consider the endurance of psychoanalytic insights in contexts unsheltered by traditional schools.
Clinically, the reflections on dissolution echo Lacan’s longstanding critique of dogmatism and his insistence on the singularity of the analytic encounter. By dissolving the school, Lacan implicitly invites clinicians to embrace a model of practice anchored in speech, desire, and the play of signifiers rather than in the authority of institutional pedagogy.
Reception and legacy
Within Lacanian communities, ‘’Dissolution’’ occupies a unique place as the capstone of the seminar series and as an occasion for thinking about psychoanalysis’ future beyond the École freudienne de Paris. Analysts and scholars interested in Lacan’s late work often approach this seminar alongside *Seminars XXV* and *XXVI* as part of his concluding reflections on language, time, and institutional life.
Because of its unpublished status, the seminar is less widely cited than earlier seminars that received canonical Seuil editions; however, its influence persists in discussions about analytic autonomy, institutional critique, and the transmission of psychoanalytic knowledge outside formal schools.
Scholarly engagement
Commentators have used materials from ‘’Dissolution’’ to explore Lacan’s stance on institutional authority, the politics of psychoanalytic schools, and the relationship between theory and organizational life in psychoanalysis. This seminar is sometimes discussed in conjunction with broader studies on Lacan’s late thought, highlighting themes of self‑reflection and reflexivity in both his psychoanalytic practice and intellectual commitments.
See also
- Jacques Lacan
- École freudienne de Paris
- Seminar XXV
- Seminar XXVI
- Psychoanalytic institution
- Transmission (psychoanalysis)
- End of analysis
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 “Seminars of Jacques Lacan” (English Wikipedia Seminar Index). Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "IndexWiki" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Lacan’s Seminar XXVII is noted for sessions including 15 Apr. 1980 and 10 June 1980 (unpublished transcripts). Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "AcadPaper" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Lacan’s opening address to international meeting in Caracas, July 12 1980. Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "Caracas" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Lacan’s announcement of the dissolution of the Freudian School was published in *Le Matin* (18 March 1980), describing his decision and intentions for future work. Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "LeMatin" defined multiple times with different content
Further reading
- Transcriptions and translations of speeches from Seminar XXVII (unofficial archives).
- Secondary analyses of Lacan’s late institutional and theoretical reflections in psychoanalytic journals and monographs.
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French
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| 13 novembre 1979 | link |
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| 20 novembre 1979 | link |
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| 11 décembre 1979 | link |
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| 5 janvier 1980 | link link |
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| 15 janvier 1980 | link link |
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| 11 mars 1980 | link link |
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| 18 mars 1980 | link link |
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| 15 avril 1980 | link link |
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| 10 juin 1980 | link link |
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| 12-15 juillet 1980 | link link |
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