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[[seminar]] ([[French]]: ''[[séminaire]]) ==Summary==In contrast with [[Freud]], whose work was primarily written, [[Jacques Lacan]]'s work was for the most part an oral improvisation from notes delivered as an ongoing [[seminar]] that he held in Paris from 1953 to 1980. From 1953 to 1963, [[Lacan]]'s [[seminar]] was held at the [[Sainte-Anne Hospital]] in Paris. From 1964 to 1969, starting with seminar 11, it was held at the [[École Normale Supérieure]] on rue d'Ulm. A nd finally, from 1969 to 1980, starting with seminar 17, it was held before a much larger audience in the amphitheater of the law school at the Panthéon. ==Early Lectures==In 1951, [[Lacan]] began to give private lectures in [[Sylvia Bataille]]'s apartment at 3 rue de Lille. The lectures were attended by a small group of [[trainee]] [[psychoanalysts]], and were based on readings of some of [[Freud]]'s [[case histories]]: [[Dora]], the [[Rat Man]] and the [[Wolf Man]]. ==Hôpital Sainte-Anne==In 1953, the venue of these lectures moved to the [[Hôpital Sainte-Anne]], here a larger audience could be accommodated. Although [[Lacan]] sometimes refers to the private lectures of 1951-2 and 1952-3 as the first two years of his '[[seminar]]', the term is now usually reserved for the public lectures which began in 1953. From that point on until his [[death]] in 1981, [[Lacan]] took a different theme each academic year and delivered a series of lectures on it. These twenty-seven annual series of lectures are usually referred to collectively as 'the [[seminar]]', in the singular. ==École Normale Supérieure== After ten years at the [[Hôpital Sainte-Anne]], the [[seminar]] moved to the [[École Normale Supérieure]] in 1964, and to the Faculté de Droit in 1973. These changes of venue were due to various reasons, not least of which was the need to accommodate the constantly growing audience as the [[seminar]] gradually became a focal point in the Parisian intellectual resurgence of the 1950s and 1960s. == Speech == Given [[Lacan]]'s insistence that [[speech]] is the only medium of [[psychoanalysis]],<ref>{{E}} p.40</ref> it is perhaps appropriate that the original means by which [[Lacan]] developed and expounded his ideas should have been the spoken [[word]]. As [[Lacan]]'s [[[[seminar]]]]s became increasingly popular, demand grew for written transcripts of the [[seminar]]. However, apart from a few small articles that he wrote on the basis of some lectures delivered in the course of the [[seminar]], [[Lacan]] never published any account of his own [[[[seminar]]]]s. In 1956-9 [[Lacan]] authorised Jean-Bertrand Pontalis to publish a few summaries of sections of the [[seminar]] during those years, but this as not enough to satisfy the growing demand for written accounts of [[Lacan]]'s teaching. Hence unauthorised transcripts of [[Lacan]]'s [[seminar]] began increasingly to be circulated among his followers in an almost clandestine way. Even during Lacan's lifetime, the seminar circulated in the form of photocopies of diverse and unreliable written versions of the spoken text. Beginning in 1973, Lacan entrusted the transcription of the seminar to [[Jacques-Alain Miller]]. In 1973, [[Lacan]] allowed his son-in-law, [[Jacques-Alain Miller]], to publish an edited transcript of the lectures given in 1964, the eleventh year of the [[seminar]]. In an editor's note to ''[[The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis]]'', the first of his publications of [[Lacan]]'s [[seminars]], [[Miller wrote, ]] writes: <blockquote>"My intention here was to be as unobtrusive as possible and to obtain from Jacques Lacan's spoken work an authentic version that would stand, in the future, for the original, which does not exist." (<ref>{{S11}} p. xi)</ref></blockquote> Since then, [[Miller]] has continued to bring out edited versions of other years of the [[seminar]], although the number published is still fewer than half. [[Miller]]'s role in editing and publishing the [[seminar]] has led to some very heated arguments, with opponents claiming he has distorted [[Lacan]]'s original. However, as [[Miller]] himself has pointed out, the transition from an oral to a written medium, and the editing required by this, means that these published versions of the [[seminar]] could never be simple transcripts of the lectures given by [[Lacan]].<ref>Miller, 1985</ref> So far only nine of the yearly [[[[seminar]]]]s have been published in book form, while authorised extracts from others have appeared in the journal [[Ornicar?]]. Unauthorised transcripts of the unpublished years of the [[seminar]] continue to circulate today, both in [[France]] and abroad. Name-of-the-Father was to be the next seminar, but only a single session was given, on November 25, 1963, at Sainte-Anne Hospital. Lacan stopped giving this seminar when he learned that the International Psychoanalytical Association had refused to reinstate him as a training analyst. Each seminar contains approximately 25 presentations from the weekly seminar. While each presentation is supposed to pick up and follow on from the week before, the connections can often be tenuous. Unlike the ''Écrits'', the seminars are not difficult to read, but it can still be hard to follow the train of associations and links that Lacan makes. Usually, though, in a performative flourish Lacan will pull the whole presentation together in the final moments and provide a startlingly clear and understandable formulation of what he has been talking about.
The individual seminars that make up Lacan's seminar are as follows:
In some European universities a [[seminar]] can be a large lecture course, especially when conducted by a renowned thinker, regardless of the size of the audience or its participation in discussion.
==See Also==
* ''[[École freudienne de Paris]]'' ([[École freudienne de Paris|Freudian School of Paris]])
* [[France]]
# École Lacanienne de psychanalyse. (1991). Le transfert dans tous ses errata and Pour une transcription critique des séminaires de Jacques Lacan. Paris: E.P.E.L.
# Miller, Jacques-Alain. (1985). Entretien sur le séminaire avec François Ansermet. Paris: Navarin.
[[Category:Seminars]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
[[Category:Works]]
[[Category:Terms]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]