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It would be fair to say that there are few twentieth century thinkers who have had such a far{{JL}}[[Image:Jacques-lacan-4.jpg|thumb|250px|right]]<!--reaching influence on subsequent intellectual life in the humanities as {{Infobox_Scientist| name = Jacques Lacan| image = Lacan3. Lacan’s ‘return jpg| image_width = 200px| caption = | birth_date = [[13 April]] [[1901]]| birth_place = [[Paris]], [[France]]| death_date = [[9 September]] [[1981]]| death_place = [[Paris]], [[France]]| residence = | citizenship = France| nationality = | ethnicity = | field = [[Psychology]]| work_institution = | alma_mater = | doctoral_advisor = | doctoral_students = | known_for = | author_abbreviation_bot = | author_abbreviation_zoo = | prizes = | religion = | footnotes = }}-->[[Jacques Lacan|Jacques-Marie Émile Lacan]] ([[Jacques Lacan:Chronology#1901|13 April 1901]] – [[Jacques Lacan:Chronology#1981|9 September 1981]]) was a [[French]] [[psychoanalyst]] and [[psychiatrist]] who made prominent contributions to the meaning of Freud’ not only profoundly changed the institutional face of the psychoanalytic movement internationallypsychoanalysis, [[philosophy]], and [[literary]] [[theory]]. His Giving yearly [[seminars ]] in the 1950’s were one of the formative environments of the currency of philosophical ideas that dominated French letters Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's intellectuals in the 1960’s 1960s and 70’sthe 1970s, and which has come to be known in especially the Anglophone world as ‘postpost-structuralism’[[structuralist]] [[philosophers]]. Both inside and outside of FranceHis interdisciplinary [[work]] is [[Freudian]], featuring the [[unconscious]], Lacan’s work has also been profoundly important in the fields of aesthetics[[castration]] [[complex]], literary criticism and film theory. Through the work of Althusser (and more lately Ernesto Laclauego, [[identification]], Jannis Stavrokakis and Slavoj Zizek), Lacanian theory has also left its mark [[language]] as [[subjective]] [[perception]]. His [[ideas]] have had a significant impact on political [[critical theory]], and particularly the analysis of ideology and institutional reproduction. This article[[literary theory]], which seeks to outline something of the philosophical heritage and importance of Lacan’s theoretical worktwentieth-century French philosophy, is divided into four parts[[sociology]], each of which has subsections[[feminist]] theory and [[clinical]] psychoanalysis.

== def Biography== <blockquote>''[[Chronology|Click here for a more complete chronology of '''Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan''' (April 13, 1901 &ndash; September 9's life]].''</blockquote>;1901:13 April, Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan is [[born]] in Paris, 1981) was to a French [[psychoanalystfamily]] and of solid [[psychiatristCatholic]].  His work, like most psychoanalytic work[[tradition]]. He is educated at the collège Stanislas, owes a heavy, explicit debt to Jesuit school. After his ''baccalauréat'' he studies [[Sigmund Freudmedicine]], but also drew from a number of other fields, including and later [[linguisticspsychiatry]], .;1927: Starts clinical [[philosophytraining]], and works at [[mathematicsSainte-Anne's hospital]].  This interdisciplinary focus A year later he works in his work has led him to be an important figure in many fields beyond the Special Infirmary Service where [[[psychoanalysisClérambault]] - particularly within had a [[critical theorypractice]]. ;1932His central idea was that the human subject is a creation of its use of language. From this understanding Lacan develops :Awarded doctorate for his study of psychoanalysis and his treatment strategies. His work[[thesis]], while controversial, continues to influence the development of psychoanalysis worldwide. In France and elsewhere various "schools" of Lacanian thought have emerged''[[De la psychose paranoïaque dans ses rapports avec la personnalité]]''. ;1933Although there exist various competing emphases on Lacan's work among these "schools":The richness of his thesis, all agree in especially the fundamental importance [[analysis]] of the unconscious. By structuring the options available to any speaking subject in the articulation [[case]] of his or her desires[[Aimée]], makes him famous with the unconscious determines [[Surrealist]]s. BEtween this year and 1939 he takes [[Kojève]]'s course at the very fabric of human life as we may come to know itEcole Pratique des Hautes [[Etudes]], according an "Introduction to Lacan. ==Career==Lacan took up the study the [[reading]] of medicine in 1920 and specialised in psychiatry from 1926. He undertook his own analysis around this time with [[Rudolph LoewensteinHegel]] and this continued until 1938. Lacan was very active in the world of Parisian writers";1934:He [[marries]] [[Marie-Louise]] Blondon, artists and intellectuals of the time: he was a friend [[mother]] of [[André BretonCaroline]], [[Salvador DalíThibaut]] and [[PicassoSibylle]]. While in analysis with Rudolph [[Loewenstein]]{{fact}}, and attended Lacan becomes a member of the ''mouvement Psyché'' founded by [[Maryse Choisy[Société Psychanalytique de Paris|Société psychanalytique de Paris]]]. He made contributions to several Surrealist publications and was present at the first public reading of [[James Joyce]]’s ''([[Ulysses (novel)Société psychanalytique de Paris|UlyssesSPP]]''). In his studies he had a particular interest ;1940:Works at Val-de-Grâce, the military hospital in Paris. During the philosophic work of [[Karl JaspersGerman]] Occupation, he does not take part in any [[official]] and [[Martin Heideggeractivity]] and, alongside many other Parisian intellectuals of the time.;1946:In 1946, he also attended the famous seminars on [[HegelSPP]] resumes its activities and Lacan, with Nacht and Lagache, takes charge of training [[analyses]] given by and supervisory [[Alexandre Kojèvecontrol]].  Lacan presented his first analytic paper on ‘The Mirror Phase’ at and plays an important [[theoretical]] and institutional [[role]].;1951:The [[SPP]] begins to raise the 1936 Congress issue of Lacan's [[short sessions]], as opposed to the International Psychoanalytical Association in Marienbadstandard analytical hour. He was called up to serve in ;1953:In January Lacan is elected President of the French army after the German occupation of France and was posted [[SPP]]. Six months later he resigns to join the Val-de-Grâce military hospital in Paris. After the end of the war Lacan visited England for a five week study trip, meeting English analysts ''[[Wilfred Bion]Société Française de Psychanalyse] and John Rickman. He was much influenced by Bion’s analytic work with groups and this contributed to his own later emphasis on study groups ]'' (in France, cartels[[SFP]]) as a structure with which to advance theoretical work in psychoanalysisD. Lagache, F. Dolto, J. Favez-Boutonier among [[others]].   In 1951 Rome, Lacan started to hold a weekly seminar at the St-Anne Hospital Parisdelivers his report, urging what he described as ‘a return to Freud’ and"''[[Fonction et champ de la parole et du langage]]''". On 17 July he marries [[Sylvia]] Maklès, in particular, to Freud’s concentration upon the linguistic nature mother of psychological symptomatology[[Judith]]. Very influential in Parisian cultural life as well as in psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, That autumn Lacan starts his [[seminar]]s at the seminars drew large crowds and continued for nearly thirty years[[Hôspital Sainte-Anne]]. ;1954Lacan was a member of the Société Parisienne de Psychanalyse (SPP):The first ten [[seminar]]s elaborate fundamental notions [[about]] [[psychoanalytic]] [[technique]], which was a member body of the essential [[International Psychoanalytical Associationconcepts]] of [[psychoanalysis]] (IPA). In 1953, after a disagreement about analytic practice methods, Lacan and many of his colleagues left the SPP to form a new group the its [[Société Française de Psychanalyseethics]] (SFP). One of the consequences of During this move was to deprive period Lacan writes, on the new group basis of membership within his seminars, conferences and addresses in colloquia, the IPA. In the following years a complex process of negotiation was major [[texts]] that are found in ''[[Ecrits]]'' in 1966.;1956:Celebrities are attracted to take place to determine the status of the SFP within the IPA. Lacan’s practice, with his controversial innovation seminars ([[Jean Hyppolite]]'s analysis of variable-length sessions[[Freud]]'s article on ''Dé[[négation]]'', and given during the critical stance he took towards much of the accepted orthodoxy of psychoanalytic theory and practice ledfirst seminar, in 1963, to is a condition being set by the IPA that the registration of the SFP was dependent upon Lacan being removed from the list of training analysts with the organisationwell-known example). Lacan refused such a condition and left the SFP to form his own school which became know as the [[École Freudienne de ParisAlexandre Koyré]] (EFP). Leaving the St, Claude Lévi-Anne Hospital where he had delivered his seminar up to this point Lacan began to give it instead at the elite higher education establishment the [[École Normale SupérieureStrauss]], Maurice [[Merleau-Ponty]], and ethnologist Marcel Griaule, Emile Benveniste among others attend his courses. Lacan began to set forth his own teaching on psychoanalysis ;1962:[[SFP]] members [[want]] to an audience of colleagues who had joined him from be recognized by the SFP. His lectures also attracted many of the École Normale’s students.  Many students of Lacan became important psychoanalysts and/or wrote influential contributions to philosophy and other fields. [[Michel Foucault[[International Psycho-Analytical Association]], ([[Jacques DerridaIPA]], ). The [[Louis AlthusserIPA]], issues an ultimatum: Lacan's [[Jacques-Alain Millername]], must be crossed off the [[Luce Irigaraylist]]of didacticians.;1963:Two weeks before the expiry of the deadline set by the IPA (31 October), the committee of didacticians of the [[Jean LaplancheSFP]], gives up its courageous stand of 1962 and even pronounces in favour of the ban: Lacan is no longer one of the didacticians.;1964:Lacanians [[Claude Levi-Straussform]]a Study Group on Psychoanalysis organized by Jean Clavreul, for example, all attended until Lacanofficial founds the ''[[Ecole Française de Psychanalyse]]'s seminars at some point. Lacan's first seminar in 1964 was later published in English as , which soon becomes the ''[[The Four Fundamental Concepts of PsychoanalysisEcole Freudienne de Paris]]''([[EFP]]). Lacan continued to deliver his public exposition of analytic theory With [[Lévi-Strauss]] and practice for [[Althusser]]'s support, he is appointed lecturer at the next seventeen yearsEcole Pratique des Hautes Etudes.;1965==:In January Lacan begins his new seminar on "[[The 'Return to Freud'==Following Freud's death, psychoanalytic practice split into many differing schools Four Fundamental Concepts of thought. Against Psychoanalysis]]" at the backdrop of these divergent currents of psychoanalytic theory, Lacan called for a 'return to Freud'Ecole Normale Supérieure. Lacan accused later psychoanalysts His audience is made up of a superficial understanding of Freud[[analysts]] and young students in philosophy at the ENS, claiming they had so cautiously adhered to his ideas that they had served to block rather than to induce scientific investigation of the mental processnotably [[Jacques-Alain Miller]]. Lacan wanted to return to Freud's thought, and expand it in light of its own tensions and currents;1966:[[Ecrits]], Paris: Seuil 1966. In fact The book draws considerable attention to the [[EFP]], near extending far beyond the end of his life he remarked to a conference, "It is up to you to be Lacanians if you wishintelligentsia.; I am Freudian."1967 It should also be emphasised that :Lacan insisted that his work was not, in his eyes, an interpretation but a presents the ''translation[[Acte]] de Fondation'' of Freud into structural-linguistic terms. Freud's ideas the [[EFP]]; its novelty lies in the procedure of 'slips of the tongue', jokes and suchlike – Lacan insisted – all emphasised the agency of language in subjective constitution, such that had Freud lived contemporaneously with [[Claude Lévi-Strauss|Lévi-Strausspasse]], ''. The ''[[Roland Barthes|Barthespasse]] and'' consists of testifying, principally, had Freud been aware in front of the work of [two ''passeurs'', to one's [Ferdinand de Saussure|Saussure[experience]], he would have done the same as him. In his famous essay, "Freud an analysand and Lacan", fellow structuralist especially to the crucial [[Louis Althussermoment]] of passage from the [[position]] makes this point particularly well: <blockquote>"In his first great work ''The Interpretation of Dreams'' […[analysand], Freud studied the ‘mechanisms’ and ‘laws’ ] to that of dreams, reducing their variants to two: [[analyst]]. The ''displacementpasseurs'' and ''condensation''. Lacan recognized these as two essential figures of speech, called in linguistics are chosen by their [[respectivelyanalyst] metonymy ]s (generally analysts of the EFP) and metaphor. Hence slips, failures, jokes and symptoms, like should be at the same [[stage]] in their [[analytic]] experience as the elements of dreams themselves, become ''signifierspassant''. They listen to him and then, inscribed in the chain turn, they testify to what they have heard in front of a committee for approval composed of an unconscious discoursethe director, doubling silentlyLacan, i.e. deafeningly, in the misrecognition and of ‘repression’some AE, the chain of the human subject’s verbal discourse. ''[[…analyste] Hence the most important acquisitions of de Saussure and ] de l'école'' (analyst of the linguistics that descends from him began school). This committee's function is to play a justified part in select the understanding analysts of the School and to elaborate, after the selecting [[process ]], a 'work of the unconscious as well as that of the verbal discourse [[doctrine]]'.;1969:The issue of the subject and of their inter-relationship, i.e. of their identical relation and non-relation in other words, of their reduplication and dislocation (''décalagepasse'')keeps invading the EFP's [[life]]. " (Althusser, ‘Freud and Lacan’ in ''Lenin and Philosophy and other essaysLe quatrième groupe'', trans. Ben Brewster (London: New Left Books, 1971), pp. 191 – 192. </blockquote>  The " is formed around those who resign from the EFP disputing over Lacan'return to Freuds methods for the analysts', therefore, is primarily training and accreditation. Lacan takes a stand in the realisation that the pervading agency crisis of the unconscious is to [[university]] that follows May [[1968]]: "If psychoanalysis cannot be understood articulated as intimately tied to the functions a [[knowledge]] and dynamics of languagetaught as such, where, for exampleit has no [[place]] in the university, which deals only with knowledge." The ENS director finds a pretext for telling Lacan that he is no longer welcome at the ENS at the signifier is irremediably divorced from beginning of the signifiedacademic year. Moreover, ultimately resulting in Lack. It is here that Lacan began his work on "correcting" Freud from within. As Malcolm Bowie puts it: <blockquote>"For Lacan, Freud's central insight was not the journal ''Cahiers pour l'[[...Analyse]] that the unconscious exists'' has to cease publication, but that it has structure, that this structure affects in innumerable ways what we say [[Vincennes]] appears as an alternative. Michel [[Foucault]] asks Lacan to create and dodirect the Department of Psychoanlaysis at Vincennes. Thanks to Lévi-Strauss, and that in thus betraying itself it becomes accessible Lacan moves his seminars to analysis"the law school of the Panthéon. (Malcolm Bowie, 'Jacques Lacan' in John Sturrock (ed.), ''Structuralism and Since;1974: From LéviThe Vincennes Department of Psychoanalysis is renamed "[[Le Champ freudien]]" with Lacan its director and [[Jacques-Strauss to Derrida'' (OxfordAlain Miller]] its president.;1980: Oxford University PressOn 9 January, 1979), p. 118).</blockquote> (The 'return to Freud' in the full sense Lacan announces the [[dissolution]] of the term, as briefly explained above, begins with his paper ‘The agency of the letter EFP and asks those who [[wish]] to continue [[working]] with him to [[state]] their intentions in the unconscious or reason since Freud’ (''Écrits'', pp. 161 - 197)[[writing]].) He receives over one thousand letters within a week. On 21 February, Lacan's principal challenge to Freudian theory is announces the privilege that it accords to founding of the ego in self-determination. The central pillar of Jacques Lacanschool ''s psychoanalytic theory is that "[[La Cause freudienne]]'', later renamed the unconscious is structured like a language''[[Ecole de la Cause freudienne]]"''. The unconscious;1981:9 September, he argued, was not a more primitive or archetypal part of the mind separate from the conscious, linguistic ego, but rather, a formation every bit as complex Lacan dies in Paris.<!--;1901 - 1938:[[Lacan]] studies medicine and linguistically sophisticated as consciousness itself. If the unconscious is structured like a language, Lacan argues, then [[psychiatry]] and completes his [[De la psychose paranoiaque dans ses rapports avec la personalité|doctoral thesis]] on [[paranoia|paranoid]] [[psychosis]]. He presents a paper on the self is denied any point [[mirror stage]] - his first theoretical contribution to [[psychoanalysis]] - at a conference of reference to which to be 'restored' following trauma or 'identity crisis'. In this way, the [[International Psycho-Analytical Association]] in [[Marienbad]].;1938 - 1953 :[[Lacan's thesis of the structurally dynamic unconscious ]] is also a challenge to member of the ego psychology that Freud himself opposed. ==Major concepts===== The mirror stage (''le stade du miroir'') === The '[[mirror stageSociété psychanalytique de Paris]] is described in Lacan's essay, "The Mirror Stage as formative in the function of ' until he resigns to join the ''I[[Société Française de Psychanalyse]]'' as revealed in psychoanalytic experience", the .;1953 - 1963:[[Lacan]] begins his first of [[public]] [[seminar]] (which he will continue to give annually until his ''Écrits'', which remains one of his seminal papers[[death]]). Some have crudely put this as the point at which the child 'recognises' him- or herself in the mirror imageThereafter, but this is unfaithful he rises to what Lacan has become a renowned and controversial [[figure]] in mind and also confuses his terminologythe international psychoanalytic [[community]]. ;1963 - 1980:[[Lacan's emphasis here is on ]] leaves the [[SFP]] and founds his own [[school]], the process of ''identification[[École Freudienne de Paris]]'' with an outside image or entity induced through, as he puts it. Following the publication of the [[Écrits]], "insufficiency to anticipation – there is an explosion of interest in his work in France and which manufactures for the subject, caught up in the lure of spatial identification, the succession of phantasies that extends from a fragmented bodyabroad.-image to a form of its totality that I shall call orthopaedic – and, lastly, to the assumption of the armour of an alienating identity, which will mark with its rigid structure the subject’s entire mental development-><!--{| class="wikitable" (Lacan, ''Écrits'' (rvd. edn., 2002), 'The mirror stage', p. 5)width="100%" cellpadding="2" align="center" bgcolor="ffffff" style="background:#ffffff;width:100%; height:200px; text-align:center; line-height:2.0em;" It is significant that this process of identification is the first step towards the manufacture of the subject because all that follows it | width="50px" style="valign:top;" | [[{{Y}}|1901]]<BR>- the transition into the Imaginary and the Symbolic order - is based on this misrecognition (''méconnaissance'')<BR>[[{{Y}}|1938]]<BR>| align="[[left]]" style="padding: this is the process that 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em 0.5em; margin: 0.5em 0 1em 0;" | [[Lacan detects as manifesting itself at every subsequent identification with another person, identity (''not'' to be confused with 'identification') or suchlike throughout the subject's life]] studies medicine and [[psychiatry]] and completes his [[De la psychose paranoiaque dans ses rapports avec la personalité|doctoral thesis]] on [[paranoia|paranoid]] [[psychosis]]. This is the start of He presents a lifelong process of identifying paper on the self in terms [[mirror stage]] -- his first theoretical contribution to [[psychoanalysis]] -- at a conference of the Other. What is also occasionally overlooked is the experiential basis of Lacan's early paper[[International Psycho-Analytical Association]] ([[IPA]]) in Marienbad. As one writer has observed: |-| width="To evidence concerning the role of the other in childhood – the situation known as 50px"transitivism," for instance, where the child will impute his own actions to another – Lacan adds evidence from animal biology, where it has been experimentally shown that a perceptual relationship to another of the same species is necessary in the normal maturing process| [[{{Y}}|1938]]<BR>-<BR>[[{{Y}}|1953]]<BR>| align="left" style="padding: 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em 0. Without the visual presence of others, the maturing process 5em; margin: 0.5em 0 1em 0;" | [[Lacan]] is delayed, although it can be restored to a more nearly normal tempo by placing a mirror in member of the animal’s cage." ([[Anthony WildenIPA]], "Lacan and the discourse of the Other" in Lacan, affiliated) ''The Language of the Self: the Function of Language in Psychoanalysis[[Société psychanalytique de Paris]]'', trans. Anthony Wilden (London and Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981[[SPP]]), pp. 159 – 160.) ===The Other===In contrast until he resigns to join the dominant Anglo-American ''[[ego-psychologistSociété Française de Psychanalyse]]s of his time, Lacan considered the self as something constituted in the '' ([[SFP]]).|-| width="Other50px", that is, the conception of the external. Lacan argues that the psychoanalytic movement towards understanding the ego as a coherent force with dominion over a person's psyche was rooted in a misunderstanding of Freud. In Lacan's view, the self remained in eternal internal conflict and that only extensive self| [[{{Y}}|1953]]<BR>-deceit made the situation bearable. <BR>[[{{Y}}|1963]]<BR>His developmental theory of the objectified self was inspired by | align="left" style="padding: 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em 0.5em; margin: 0.5em 0 1em 0;" | [[Ferdinand de SaussureLacan]]'s insights into the relationship of the signifier and the signified - the role of language and reference in thought were central begins his first public [[seminar]] (which he will continue to give annually until his formulations, particularly the Symbolicdeath). ===The Real, the Imaginary, Thereafter, he rises to become a renowned and controversial figure in the Symbolicinternational psychoanalytic community.|-| width===Lacan also formulated the concepts of "50px" | [[the Real{{Y}}|1963]], <BR>-<BR>[[the Imaginary{{Y}}|1980]], and [[the Symbolic]], which he used to describe the elements of <BR>| align="left" style="padding: 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em 0.5em; margin: 0.5em 0 1em 0;" | [[Lacan]] leaves the [[psychic structureSFP]]. Lacan's notion of the Real is a very difficult concept which he, in (after his later years, worked to present in a structured, set-theory fashion, as "[[mathemeexpulsion]]s. The Imaginary, or non-linguistic aspect of " from the psyche, formulates human primitive [[self-knowledgeIPA]] while the Symbolic, ) and founds his term for linguistic collaborationown [[school]], generates a the ''[[communityÉcole Freudienne de Paris]]-wide reflection of '' ([[primitiveEFP]] self-knowledge and creates ). Following the very first set publication of rules that govern behavior. The Real the [[Écrits]] (1966), there is the unspeakable reality, always present but continually mediated through the imaginary an explosion of interest in his work in France and the symbolicabroad.|-The Imaginary is the realm of spatial identification that begins with the mirror stage (see above), and is instrumental in the development of psychic agency. As discussed, it is here that the emerging subject is able to ''identify'' his or her mirror image as 'self', as distinguished from 'other'| width="50px" | [[{{Y}}|1980]]<BR>-<BR>[[{{Y}}|1981]]<BR>| align="left" style="padding: 0.2em 0.2em 0. However, this process entails a certain structural alienation in that what is designated as 'self' is ''formed through'' what is Other – namely, the mirror image2em 0. What becomes the Subject proper is made through inception into the Symbolic order, which is when the infant acquires the ability to use language – that is, to realise his or her desire through speech5em; margin: 0. ===Other important concepts===* 5em 0 1em 0;" | [[The Name of the FatherLacan]] single-handedly dissolves the [[EFP]]*Oedipal drama and creates in its stead the Oedipal signification* ''[[Objet Petit aÉcole de la Cause freudienne|Cause freudienne]]''.* However, [[SignifierLacan]]/ soon dissolves the ''[[SignifiedÉcole de la Cause freudienne|Cause freudienne]]*Desire*The Drive*[[Jouissance]]*The [[Phallus]]*Das Ding* '' and replaces it with the ''[[gazeÉcole de la Cause freudienne]]''.* the [[four discourses]]|}* the [[graph of desire]]* the [[Borromean clinic]]* [[Anamorphism| Anamorphosis]] ==Writings and seminars==Although Lacan is a major figure in the history of [[psychoanalysis]], he made his most significant contributions not in the traditional form of books and journal articles, but through [[seminar]] lectures - in fact, he explicitly disclaimed publication in his later life. ''The Seminar of Jacques Lacan'', conducted over a period of more than two decades, contains the majority of his life's work, though several of these remain unpublished. Furthermore, the accuracy of the transcriptions of the seminars is disputed, with [[Sherry Turkle]] claiming that [[Jacques-Alain Miller]], Lacan's son-in-law, made extensive changes to add clarity to the material (Turkle, ''Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud's French Revolution'', p. 254-255).  His only major body of writing, ''Écrits'', is notoriously difficult to read. ''Seminar XX'' remarks that his ''Écrits'' were not to be understood, but would produce a meaning effect in the reader similar to some mystical texts. Part of the reason for this, it should be emphasised, are the repeated [[Hegelian]] allusions (themselves derived from [[Alexandre Kojève|Kojève]]'s lectures on Hegel, which Lacan attended) and similar unheralded theoretical divergences and not, first and foremost, Lacan's obscure prose style, as some have alleged. == Lacan and his discontents ==Although Lacan is often associated with it, he was not without his critics from within the major figures of what is broadly termed [[postmodernism]]. (Several writers, such as [[Slavoj Žižek]], have argued specifically against considering Lacan a poststructuralist theorist.) Along these lines, [[Jacques Derrida]] (though Derrida did not endorse nor associate himself with postmodernism) made a considerable critique of Lacan's analytic writings, accusing him of taking a [[structuralism|structuralist]] approach to psychoanalysis, but this is hardly surprising. In particular, Derrida criticises Lacanian theory for an inherited Freudian ''phallocentrism'', exemplified primarily in his conception of the ''phallus'' as the 'primary signifier' that determines the social order of signifiers. It could be said that much of Derrida's critique of Lacan stems from his relationship with Freud: for example, Derrida deconstructs the Freudian conception of 'penis envy', upon which female subjectivity is determined, to show that the primacy of the male phallus entails a hierarchy between phallic presence and absence that ultimately implodes upon itself.  Nonetheless, Lacan can be said to enjoy an awkward relationship with feminism and post-feminism in that, while he is much criticised for adopting (or inheriting from Freud) a phallocentric stance within his psychoanalytic theories, he is also taken by many to provide an accurate portrayal of the gender biases within society. Some critics accuse Lacan of maintaining the [[sexism|sexist]] tradition in psychoanalysis. Others, such as [[Judith Butler]] and [[Jane Gallop]] have offered readings of Lacan's work that opened up new possibilities for [[feminism|feminist]] theory, making it difficult to seriously reject Lacan wholesale due to sexism - although specific parts of his work may well subject to criticism on these grounds. In either case, traditional feminism has profited from Lacan's accounts to show that society has an inherent sexual bias that denigratingly reduces womanhood to a status of deficiency. Within the world outside the humanities and critical theory, criticism of Lacan tends to dismiss him/his work in a more or less wholesale fashion. [[François Roustang]], in ''The Lacanian Delusion'', called Lacan's output "extravagant" and an "incoherent system of pseudo-scientific gibberish". In ''[[Fashionable Nonsense]]'' (1997), [[Alan Sokal]] and [[Jean Bricmont]] accuse Lacan of abusing scientific concepts. Defenders of Lacanian theories dispute the validity of such criticism, and point out that Sokal has explicitly stated that he does not understand Lacan's texts. According to Lacanians, the dismissal by Sokal and his allies precludes any valid criticism of his theories, and is instead motivated by a desire to "police the boundaries" of what constitutes an appropriate use of scientific terminology. ==def==[Lacan (1901 - 1981) was the most influential 'second-generation' Freudian. Deeply influenced by structural linguistics, Lacan believed that the "unconscious was structured like a language" and reveals meaning only in the connections among signifiers (Lacan made the signifier the primary component of the signifier/signified scheme, thereby - like Derrida - reversing the traditional Western notion of the primacy of the concept.. His revisions of Freud often centered on analyzing the unconscious rather than the ego.==Sources==*[http://www.lacan.com/rolleyes.htm Chronology of Jacques Lacan]*[http://www.lacan.com/seminars1a.htm The Seminars of Jacques Lacan]* [http://www.lacan.com/bibliographyxx.htm Jacques Lacan's Complete French Bibliography]*[http://www.lacan.com/kantsade.htm Jacques Lacan; Kant with Sade]*[http://www.lacan.com/hotel.htm Of Structure as the Inmixing of an Otherness Prerequisite to Any Subject Whatever] Johns Hopkins University - 1966*[http://www.lacan.com/purloined.htm The Seminar on "The Purloined Letter"]* [http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html Chomsky's remarks]->

Selected works published in English listed below. More complete listings can be found at [http://www.lacan.com/bibliographies.htm Lacan Dot Com] or [http://www.hydra.umn.edu/lacan/gaze.html Peter Krapp's page]* <blockquote>''[[The Language of the SelfJacques Lacan: The Function of Language in PsychoanalysisBibliography|Click here]]''*, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968* ''for a more [[Écrits: A Selectioncomplete]]''*, transl. by Alan Sheridan, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1977, and revised version, 2002, transl. by Bruce Fink.* ''[[The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis]]''* ''[[The Seminar, Book I. Freud's Papers on Technique, 1953-1954]]'',, edited by Jacques-Alain Miller, transl. by J. Forrester, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1988* ''[[The Seminar, Book II. The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-1955]]'', edited by Jacques-Alain Miller, transl. by Sylvana Tomaselli, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1988.* ''[[The Seminar, Book III. The Psychoses]]'', edited by Jacques-Alain Miller, transl. by Russell Grigg, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1993.* ''[[The Seminar, Book VII. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-1960bibliography]]'', edited by Jacques-Alain Miller, transl. by Dennis Porter, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1992.*''[[The Seminar XI, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis]]'', edited by Jacques-Alain Miller, transl. by Alan Sheridan, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1977.*''[[The Seminar XX, Encore: On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge]]'', edited by Jacques-Alain Miller, transl. by Bruce Fink, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1998.*''[[Television: A Challenge to the Psychoanalytic Establishment]]'', ed. Joan Copjec, trans. Jeffrey Mehlman, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1990.<nowiki>*</nowiki>referenced above Works about Lacan's Work and Theory* Benvenuto, Bice; Kennedy, Roger, ''The Works of Jacques Lacan'' (London, 1986, Free Association Books.)* Malcolm Bowie, ''Lacan'' (London: Fontana, 1991). (An introduction.)* Dor, Joel, ''The Clinical Lacan'' (New York: Other Press, 1999)* Dor, Joel, ''Introduction to the Reading of Lacan: The Unconscious Structured Like a Language'' (New York: Other Press, 2001)* Elliott, Anthony and Frosh, Stephen (eds.), ''Psychoanalysis in Contexts: Paths between Theory and Modern Culture'' (London and New York: Routledge, 1995). (A recent overview.)* Dylan Evans, ''An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis'', Routledge, 1996.* Fink, Bruce, ''The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).* Bruce Fink, ''Lacan to the Letter: Reading Ecrits Closely'', University of Minnesoty, 2004.* Forrester, John, ''Language and the Origins of Psychoanalysis'' (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1985).* Fryer, David Ross, ''The Intervention of the Other: Ethical Subjectivity in Levinas and Lacan'' (New York: Other Press, 2004)* [[Jane Gallop]], ''The Daughter's Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysis''. London: Macmillan Press; and Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982.* [[Jane Gallop]], ''Reading Lacan''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.* Gherovici, Patricia, ''The Puerto Rican Syndrome'' (New York: Other Press, 2003)* Harari, Roberto, ''Lacan's Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis: An Introduction'' (New York: Other Press, 2004)* ------, ''Lacan's Seminar on "Anxiety": An Introduction'' (New York: Other Press, 2005)* Lander, Romulo, ''Subjective Experience and the Logic of the Other'' (New York: Other Press, 2006)* Leupin, Alexandre, ''Lacan Today'' (New York: Other Press, 2004)* Mathelin, Catherine, ''Lacanian Psychotherpay with Children: The Broken Piano'' (New York: Other Press, 1999)* McGowan, Todd and Kunkle, Sheila, Eds., ''Lacan and Contemporary Film'' (New York: Other Press, 2004)* Moustafa, Safouan, ''Four Lessons of Psychoanalysis'' (New York: Other Press, 2004)* Rabaté, Jean-Michel (ed.), ''The Cambridge Companion to Lacan'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).* Sherry Turkle, ''Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud's French Revolution'', 2nd edition, Guildford Press, New York, 1992* ————— and Wollheim, Richard, ‘Lacan: an exchange’, ''New York Review of Books'', 26 (9), 1979, p. 44.* Soler, Colette, ''What Lacan Said About Women'' (New York: Other Press, 2006)* Van Haute, Philippe, ''Against Adaptation: Lacan's "Subversion" of the Subject'' (New York: Other Press, 2002)* ----- and Geyskens, Tomas, ''Confusion of Tongues: The Primacy of Sexuality in Freud, Ferenczi, and Laplanche'' (New York: Other Press, 2004)* [[Anthony WildenBibliography|Wilden, Anthonywork]], ‘Jacques Lacan: A partial bibliography’, ''Yale French Studies'', 36/37, 1966, pp. 263 – 268.* [[Slavoj Žižek]], ‘The object as a limit of discourse: approaches to the Lacanian real’, ''Prose Studies'', 11 (3), 1988, pp. 94 – 120.* —————, ''Interrogating the Real'', ed. Rex Butler and Scott Stephens (London and New York: Continuum, 2005). ==External links=====Introductions===*[http:<//www.lacan.com/bibliography.htm Jacques Lacan in English]*[http://www.lacan.com/perfume/frame.htm Links of Jacques Lacan]*[http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/lacweb.htm Jacques Lacan at The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]blockquote>

===Practice===*[http://www.cfar.org.uk/ The Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research. London-based Lacanian psychoanalytic training agency.Site includes online library of clinical & [Lacan]]'s most important theoretical textscontributions to [[psychoanalysis]*] were presented in his [http://www[seminar]]s.lacan.org/ Homepage In 1966, a selection of [[Lacan]]'s most important papers are published under the Lacanian School title ''[[Écrits]]''; in 2006 a complete edition of Psychoanalysis and the San Francisco Society for Lacanian Studiesthese works was published in [[English]]*[http://www.londonsociety-nls.org.uk/ The London Society of the New Lacanian School. Site includes online library of clinical & theoretical texts]

==References=Theory===*[http://www.lacan.com/lacan1.htm Lacan Dot Com]*[http://www.hydra.umn.edu/lacan/index.html Lacan Online]*[http://www.ubu.com/sound/lacan.html UBUweb] - radio features and interviews w<references/ Lacan on ubu.com>

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