Changes

  The term '[[bar]]' (''barre' first appears in Lacan's work in 1957), where it is introduced used by [[Jacques Lacan]] in the context of a discussion of [[Saussure]]'s concept of the SIGN (E, 149). In this context[[sign]], the bar is refers to the line that separates the [[signifier ]] from the [[signified ]] (in the [[Saussurean algorithm (see Figure 18]]), and stands for the [[resistance ]] inherent in [[signification ]] which is only crossed in [[metaphor]]. Lacan takes pleasure in the fact that, in French, barre is an anagram of arbre (tree), since it is precisely with a tree that Saussure illustrates his own concept of the sign (E, 154)<ref>Ecrits. p.149</ref>  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 symbols S and A in a manner reminiscent of Heidegger's practice of crossing out the word 'being' (see Heidegger, 1956). The bar is used to strike through the S to produce, S, the 'barred subject'.       The bar here represents the division of the subject by language, the SPLIT.      Thus whereas before 1957 S designates the subject (e.g. in schema L), from 1957 on S designates the signifier and S designates the (divided) subject. The bar is also used to strike through the A (the big Other) to produce the algebraic notation for the 'barred Other', A .

  In 1973 the [[bar ]] is used to strike through the definite article ''la '' whenever it precedes the noun ''femme '' (womanw'oman'), as in [[Lacan]]'s famous phrase ''kffemme 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 (see S20, 68).