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==Jacques Lacan==
===Signification==Ferdinand Saussure=====
The term "[[bar]]" first appears in [[Lacan]]'s work in 1957, where it is introduced in the context of a discussion of [[Saussure]]'s concept of the [[sign]].<ref>{{E}} p.149</ref>
In this context, the [[bar]] is the line that separates the [[signifier]] from the [[signified]] (in the [[Saussurean algorithm]]), and stands for the [[resistance]] inherent in [[signification]] which is only crossed in [[metaphor]].
=====Barred Subject=====
Not long after the 1957 paper in which the term first appears, in the [[seminar]] of 1957-8, [[Lacan]] goes on to use the [[bar]] to strike through his [[algebraic]] [[symbol]]s '''S''' and '''A''' in a manner reminiscent of [[Heidegger]]'s practice of crossing out the word "[[being]]."<ref>Heidegger, 1956</ref>
The [[bar]] is also used to strike through the '''A''' (the [[big Other]]) to produce the algebraic notation for the "[[bar|barred Other]]," '''A'''.
=====Barred Other=====However, [[Lacan]] continues to use both [[sign]]s in his [[algebra]] (e.g. in the [[graph of desire]]). The [[bar]]red [[Other]] is the [[Other]] insofar as it is castrated, incomplete, marked by a [[lack]], as opposed to the complete, consistent, uncastrated [[Other]], an un-barred '''A''', which does not exist.
===Woman Does Not Exist===
In 1973 the [[bar]] is used to strike through the definite article ''la'' whenever it precedes the noun ''femme'' ('woman'), as in [[Lacan]]'s famous phrase ''la femme n'existe pas'' ('woman does not exist').
The definite article in [[French ]] indicates universality, and by crossing it out [[Lacan]] illustrates his thesis that [[femininity]] is resistant to all forms of generalisation.<ref>{{S20}} p.68</ref> ===Other===
=====Other Interpretations=====
In addition to these functions, the [[bar]] can also be interpreted as the [[symbolic]] [[phallus]] (which itself is never barred), as the [[symbol]] of [[negation]] in the [[formulae of sexuation]] (see [[sexual difference]]), and as the ''trait unaire'' (see [[identification]]).
