Seminar XX

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Seminar XIX Seminar XXI


1972 - 1973 Seminar XX Encore
Encore
Sem.XX.jpg

Introduction to Encore

(The following is an excerpt from an "Introduction to Encore" by Francois Regnault)

Jouissance

The Seminar XX, which Jacques Lacan called Encore, was delivered between December 12, 1972 and June 26, 1975. It takes place at a turning point in French politics after the events of May 68, and in the teaching of Jacques Lacan. [...]

In Encore (whose cover shows Bernini's The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa as it stands in the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome) the puzzle of the discourses recurs again and again, but the issue unfolds in the dimension that rules Lacan's teaching at least since Seminar XVI D'un Autre à l'autreFrom an Other to the other— (just before 1968!) until its very end, until it becomes almost the dominant category, that is jouissance. (Jouissanceposited as an absolute, see Chapter XIII of the Seminar XVI).

Thus this is no wonder that jouissance (of which one must not forget the legal origin, fruit and tenure) is introduced early in its opposition to the functional: "Jouissance is what is useless." The superego, the concept of Freud's second topography to which he gave a repressive meaning (Kant's Moral Law), Lacan did not consider it less brutal, but he also deems it obscene, and changes its orientation by enjoining it Jouis! (Yes, I mean the Law, I heard, j'ouis, her voice, and she becomes my desire). And soon taking up residence in the field of sexuality, this approach brings about the following statements: a) "The jouissance of the Other, of the Other's body that symbolizes it, is not a sign of love." b) "Ultimately, one person's body is just a part of the Other's body." c) Finally,"…it is the Other who jouit."[1] Then, "there is a hole there and that hole is called the Other."[2]] Later on Lacan will declare that "the Other doesn't exist."

Sexuality

3. From then on a relationship between jouissance and sexuality is articulated (according to a topology that will be developed later on in the seminar), a relationship which cannot be reduced to the male and female orgasms, but one that will meet the obstacle of choice set up by psychoanalysis, namely that "there is no sexual relationship" and that will be resolved by way of love, made up for its absence. "What makes up the sexual relationship is, quite precisely, love."[3]

The seminar of jacques lacan book xx encore bruce fink 2.jpg

4. The Seminar XX performs as a theory on jouissance in its complex relationship with love, where Freud's emphasis on narcissism remains evident, and where the opposition between desire and love's demand, which dominated the so-called "classical" Lacanian theory (we propose here a rather flexible periodization), is being displaced to a more central articulation and perhaps to a more consistent involvement with the deepening of the clinic: the opposition between phallic jouissance, and that other jouissance, the one Lacan named "supplementary jouissance."[4] It will allow Lacan (in Chapter VI of the Seminar "God and Woman(barredJouissance") to assign to the mystical a point of fall (or) of real. As a result, the reputed mystical delusions are just "mere business of fucking."

Phallic jouissance vs. feminine jouissance

If phallic jouissance can encapsulate as a whole and in its more persistent meanings a whole range of psychoanalytic issues such as orgasm pleasure, the pleasure principle, sexual satisfaction, sexual fetishism, perversion, etc., it has now to contend with this other dimension of itself, one that is often considered enigmatic, an other jouissance, one called the other jouissance.

5. So there, psychoanalysis feels embarrassed with this other jouissance, and the following statement reveals the discomfort: "Were there another jouissance than phallic jouissance, it shouldn't be/could never fail to be that one." From there on the paradox is established: in fact there is no other than phallic jouissance (such as orgasm, detumescence, the primacy of the phallus, etc.) "except the one concerning which woman doesn't breathe a word." Psychoanalysis therefore assumes here that woman is capable of an unverifiable jouissance, other (other than the one Charles de Brosses, a libertine from the eighteenth century, boasted to recognize in the traits of Bernini's Saint Theresa). It is then necessary to Lacan to resort to a Stoic logic according to which truth is deduced from the false: "Suppose that there is another (true!)—but there isn't (false!)." The doubt remains, after all, and it weighs heavily: the male is intrigued and ponders over the notion that woman is not, is never whole, or encore that The woman (as a whole) does not exist. "There is a jouissance that is hers (the woman), that belongs to that ‘she' that doesn't exist and doesn't signify anything."[5] Hence the idea that we are dealing with "a jouissance that is in the realm of the infinite."[6]  And "Why not interpret one face of the Other, the God face, as based on feminine jouissance?"[7]

21 Novembre 1972

First session. « About jouissance ». Published in french as early as in 1975, Encore may be the most emblematic Lacan's Séminaire. First, plenty of ideas developped in it are significant and will renew psychoanlytic theory for years; then, Lacan's style reaches its highest point in the countless ways he distorts language and plays with it. During Encore, the final formalization of the non-existence of the sexual rapport (with the sexuation formulas table) and the full completion of jouissance's theory will progressively give way to what will become the topologic period of Lacan's teaching. In the end of Encore, he introduces his famous booromean knot on which he'll work during his last 8 years. The US edition is called The Seminar, Book XX : On feminine sexuality, the limits of love and knowledge : Encore. In this first session, Lacan speaks about love and jouissance.

20 Février 1973

A central (and really beautiful) session in this central Séminaire. Lacan speaks about the specificity of the feminine jouissance and the mystical jouissance. In the published version, the chapter is called "Dieu et la jouissance de La Femme" ("God and the jouissance of The Woman »). extract : "And why not interpreting a face of the Other, the face of God, like supported by feminine jouissance".

English translation

An English translation of Seminar VIII was made by a reading group associated with Jacques Lacan in Ireland and Cormac Gallagher from unedited French manuscripts, and arranged in a presentable form by Tony Hughes.

Author(s) Title Publisher Year Pages Language Size Filetype Downloads
Jacques Lacan, Jacques-Alain Miller, Bruce Fink On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XX, Encore
0393319164, 9780393319163, 0393045730, 9780393045734
W. W. Norton & Company 1999 160
[81]
English 2 Mb pdf 1, 2, 3,4, 5
Jacques Lacan, Jacques-Alain Miller, Bruce Fink On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XX, Encore
0393319164, 9780393319163, 0393045730, 9780393045734
W. W. Norton & Company 1999 159
[81]
English 3 Mb pdf 1, 2, 3, 4, 5


Related

Bruce Fink, Suzanne Barnard, Jacques Lacan SUNY Series in Psychoanalysis & Culture
Reading Seminar XX: Lacan's Major Work on Love, Knowledge, and Feminine Sexuality
State University of New York Press 2002 200
[199]
English 719 Kb pdf 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Bruce Fink, Suzanne Barnard, Jacques Lacan SUNY Series in Psychoanalysis & Culture
Reading Seminar XX: Lacan's Major Work on Love, Knowledge, and Feminine Sexuality
State University of New York Press 2002 192 English 17 Mb pdf 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Bruce Fink, Suzanne Barnard, Jacques Lacan SUNY Series in Psychoanalysis & Culture
Reading Seminar XX: Lacan's Major Work on Love, Knowledge, and Feminine Sexuality
State University of New York Press 2002 192 English 17 Mb pdf 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

French (Text & Audio)

Date Title PDF MP3
21 Novembre 1972 De la jouissance pdf mp3
12 décembre 1972 Complément
Et début de la séance suivante: la bêtise Exposé de Recanati paru dans Scilicet n° 5 -Seuil
pdf mp3
19 décembre 1972 A Jakobson pdf mp3
09 janvier 1973 La fonction de l'écrit pdf mp3
16 janvier 1973 L'amour et le signifiant pdf mp3
13 février 1973 Aristote et Freud: l'Autre satisfaction pdf mp3
20 février 1973 Dieu et la jouissance de la femme pdf mp3
13 mars 1973 Une lettre d'âmour pdf mp3
20 mars 1973 Le savoir et la vérité pdf mp3
10 avril 1973 Complément
Début de la séance suivante: La position de linguiste
Fin de la séance: Remerciement
pdf mp3
08 mai 1973 Du baroque pdf mp3
15 mai 1973 Ronds de ficelle pdf mp3
26 juin 1973 Le rat dans le labyrinthe pdf pdf
  • Download - Sources: critical version established by E.L.P., audio recordings of the sessions on the site of Patrick VALAS, a reading by Christian Fierens.
  • Download - Source: http://ecole-lacanienne.net
  • Download -- Transcription of the first seven sessions of this seminar, conducted from 1991 to 1998 by VRMNAGRLSOFAFBYPMB. The sources used were the notes of CC, DA, EP, the stenotype for the four first sessions, the Gabbay version and audio tape recordings.
Audio Recordings of Lacan's Seminars
  • 1972.11.21
  • 1972.12.12
  • 1972.12.19
  • 1973.01.09
  • 1973.01.16
  • 1973.02.13
  • 1973.02.20
  • 1973.03.13
  • 1973.03.20
  • 1973.04.10
  • 1973.05.08
  • 1973.05.15
  • 1973.06.26

References

  1. Lacan J., Encore, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XX, 1972-1973, New York: W.W. Norton, 1998, p.23.
  2. Ibid, p. 113
  3. Ibid, p. 44
  4. Ibid, p. 72
  5. Ibid, p. 74
  6. Ibid, p. 103
  7. Ibid, p. 77