Jacques Lacan
Jacques-Marie Émile Lacan (April 13, 1901 – September 9, 1981) was a French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
He is one of the most important -- and most controversial -- figures in the history of psychoanalysis, but is also acknowledged for his far-reaching influence across a wide range of disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences.
|
Biography
Click here for a more complete chronology of Jacques Lacan's life.
| 1901 - 1938 |
Lacan studies medicine and psychiatry and completes his doctoral thesis on paranoid psychosis.[1]
He presents a paper on the mirror stage -- his first theoretical contribution to psychoanalysis -- at a conference of the International Psycho-Analytical Association (IPA) in Marienbad. |
| 1938 - 1953 |
Lacan is a member of the (IPA affiliated) Société psychanalytique de Paris (SPP) until he resigns to join the Société Française de Psychanalyse (SFP). |
| 1953 - 1963 |
Lacan begins his first public seminar (which he will continue to give annually until his death).
Thereafter, he rises to become a renowned and controversial figure in the international psychoanalytic community. |
| 1963 - 1980 |
Lacan leaves the SFP (after his "expulsion" from the IPA) and founds his own school, the École Freudienne de Paris (EFP).
Following the publication of the Écrits (1966), there is an explosion of interest in his work in France and abroad. |
| 1980 - 1981 |
Lacan single-handedly dissolves the EFP and creates in its stead the Cause freudienne.[2]
However, Lacan soon dissolves the Cause freudienne and replaces it with the École de la Cause freudienne. |
Theory
Lacan's work has transformed psychoanalysis, both as a theory and as a practice.
In the 1950s, Lacan emphasized the role of language (and the symbolic order) in psychoanalysis and formulated his most important thesis: that the unconscious is structured like a language.
(This was an extraordinarily innovative period for Lacan and he introduced many of the concepts that would preoccupy him for the rest of his career.)
Lacan drew on a field of study known as Structuralism and on linguistic theory.
Claude Lévi-Strauss's elementary structure of kinship provided the basis for Lacan's conception of the symbolic order and the formation of the unconscious.
Lévi-Strauss's structural anthropology was facilitated by the work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) and it was through Lévi-Strauss that Lacan began to read linguistics.
In the process he made radical and far-reaching changes to Saussure's concept of the linguistic sign, completely reversing any conventional understanding of the relationship between the speaking subject and language.
Finally, we will look at the Russian linguist Roman Jakobson's (1896-1982) work on metaphor and metonymy, as this was crucially important for Lacan's conceptualization of desire.
Lacan's conception of the subject as constituted in and through language.
Bibliography
Click here for a more complete bibliography of Jacques Lacan's work.
Lacan's most important theoretical contributions to psychoanalysis were presented in his seminars.
In 1966, a selection of Lacan's most important papers are published under the title Écrits; fewer than one-third of them are included in the English Écrits: A Selection (1977).
References
- ↑ De la psychose paranoiaque dans ses rapports avec la personalité ("On Paranoid Psychosis and Its Relations to the Personality").
- ↑ Lacan states: "It is up to you to be Lacanians if you wish; I am Freudian."
Further information about Jacques Lacan can be found below:
- Žižek, Slavoj. Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991. pp. 5–6, 21, 28–29, 33–39, 65, 75, 88, 90–91, 95–96, 98, 103, 108–110, 118–119, 125–126, 128–132, 135–139, 151–153, 158, 161–169
