Seminar XX

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‘’’Le séminaire, Livre XX: Encore, 1972-1973’’’. Paris: Editions du Seuil. 1975. English version: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XX: Encore, On Feminine Sexuality, The Limits of Love and Knowledge 1972-1973. Ed. J.-A. Miller. Trans. B. Fink. New York: Norton, 1998.

Seminar XX is Lacan's major work on feminine sexuality. In particular he explores the question of feminine desire that was absent from his earlier theory of the phallus. It is a short seminar with only 11 presentations and many of these are rather enigmatic and aphoristic, if they are not read in relation to the discussion of courtly love in Seminar VII and the formulation of jouissance and drive in Seminar XI. Seminar XX develops the idea that the 'woman does not exist' and that she is 'not-whole', but also goes beyond the discussions of feminine sexuality to consider the relationship between jouissance and love and the idea of jouissance as the ultimate limit of human knowledge.


In the seminar Encore, Lacan proposed what he called "formulas of sexuation" to set down the basic structures of male and female sexuality.


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References

  1. Žižek, S. (2000) The Fragile Absolute, or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For, London and New York: Verso. p. 115, 116, 118, 143

See Also