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<b>Le séminaire, Livre XIII: L'[[objet ]] de la [[psychanalyse]].</b><br>[[French]]: unpublished.<br>[[English]]: unpublished.

The theme of the [[subject ]] [[divided ]] between [[knowledge ]] and [[truth ]] is raised throughout the [[seminar]]. [[Lacan ]] responds to the alternative between the [[mathematical ]] [[model ]] and [[metaphor ]] by [[stating ]] that "[[topology ]] is not a metaphor, but a rigorous <i>montage</i> with the <i>[[objet a]]</i>." Thus the use of four [[mathemes]]: the disk with a [[hole]], the Moebius [[strip]], the [[torus ]] and the [[Klein ]] bottle. "The hole of the [[lack ]] of the <i>objet a</i> would be located at the intersection of the fields of truth and knowledge": such is the conribution of [[psychoanalysis]]. It can therefore question [[science ]] as to the truth whose [[contingency ]] is missed or forgotten; the same happens with [[religion]]. Lacan both splits and unites his audience in two [[categories]]: "those who use my [[word ]] for [[analytic ]] purposes," and "those who prove that it can be followed in all its [[coherence ]] and rigor, that it fits in a [[structure ]] valid even [[outside ]] its [[present ]] [[practice]]." He also distinguishes between the [[analyst ]] who at the [[moment ]] of knowledge is divided (and he [[knows ]] it), and the status of the subject-supposed-to-[[know ]] (the subject of science) who restores the prestige of <i>méconnaissancemé[[connaissance]]</i> by [[thinking ]] that he is uniting knowledge and subject.<br>

Lacan goes to the [[Graph ]] of [[Desire ]] and relates [[them ]] to his topology. The <i>objet a</i> is situated on four sides:<br>1. the [[demand ]] of the [[Other ]] (<i>objet a</i> is [[feces]])<br>2. the demand on the part of the Other (<i>objet a</i> is the [[breast]])<br>3. desire on the part of the Other (<i>objet a</i> is the [[gaze]])<br>

4. desire of the Other (<i>objet a</i> is the [[voice]])<br>In this perspective he gives an account of his lectures in the [[United States]], organized by Roman [[Jakobson]], notably "Of Structure as an Inmixing of an [[Otherness ]] Prerequisite to Any Subject Whatever," at Johns Hopkins [[University]]. Michel [[Foucault ]] talks [[about ]] Velasquez's <i>Las Meninas</i>. His address allows Lacan to conjure his [[theory ]] of the painting as "a trap for the gaze," a gaze in which what falls is <i>objet a</i>. The little [[girl ]] is the slit in the perspective and the vanishing point, the hidden center of the painting, and "in this gap, <i>béance</i> where there is [[nothing ]] to see, it is [[impossible ]] to recognize the structure of the <i>objets a</i>: underneath the Infanta's dresses, 'it looks at me,' while the eye is made not to see..." Georges [[Bataille]]'s <i>Histoire de l'oeil</i> is quoted as a [[text ]] that establishes a connection among all the <i>objets a</i> in their rapport to the [[feminine ]] [[sexual ]] [[organ]]. Therefore, the [[phallus ]] is the [[sign ]] that occupies the [[place ]] of this gap, the impossible or untenable [[real]]. This entails a reshaping of the [[unconscious ]] around [[language ]] and the gaze (excluded by [[Freud]]). Lacan goes back to to the [[Freudian ]] [[dimension ]] of desire and of the subject whose foundation is [[castration]]. The vagina, the feminine sexual organ, becomes the <i>objet a</i>, which fascinates and leads to ruin unless there is the [[screen ]] of the phallus, even under the [[form ]] of - </font><font face="[[Symbol]]" size="3">F</font><font face="BOOKMAN" size="3">. In the end, the [[penis]], as a manifestation that is seen, hardly hides the [[presence ]] of an <i>objet a</i> that would be an enigmatic - <i>a</i>.<br>

The gaze, it should be noted, is not found on the side of the subject, but on that of the [[object]]. "It marks the point in the object (the picture) from which the viewing subject is already gazed at" (Slavoj [[Zizek]]). The gaze is a spot in the picture, which does not warrant the presence of the subject and by blurring its visibility, introduces a [[split ]] in the rapport between the object and the subject: the latter cannot see the picture at the point from which it is gazing at him. Zizek brings out <i>[[Psycho]]</i>, where Norman Bates' house is rendered [[uncanny ]] because Hitchcok's viewpoint switches from the house coming closer (as seen by the approaching [[woman]]) to the same woman coming closer (as seen from the house), giving the anxious impression that the house is gazing at her.