Difference between revisions of "Talk:The Seminar"

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I would suggest that a better way to read Lacan is through the seminars and the accompanying Readings published by SUNY Press (see 'Works on Jacques Lacan' below).
 +
 +
The seminar is unquestionably an unusual reading experience.
 +
 +
Each seminar contains approximately 25 presentations from the fortnightly seminar (although they get shorter as Lacan reduces his theory to a set of mathematical formulas in his final years).
 +
 +
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.
 +
 +
So, however bewildering the seminar might seem, it is always worth following it through.
 +
 +
From the currently published seminars a good place to start would be Seminars II, VII and XI.
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 +
 +
-----------
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seminar (séminaire)                   
 
seminar (séminaire)                   
  
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== History ==
 
−
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]].
 
  
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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.
 
  
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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.
+
From 1953 to 1980, the Séminaire of the french psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) is the laboratory, the work-in-progress for his « Return to Freud » project. A return to the real meaning of Freud's discovery, including the recent contributions made by linguistics (Saussure, Jakobson) and structural anthropology (Lévi-Strauss), and then through formal logic and topology.
 +
 
 +
Lacan's Séminaire was a singular place and moment, almost weekly, every year from november to june. Without any connection with university, it was public and open to everyone. In the beginning, Lacan reads through again and comments on the works of Freud for a limited audience made of psychiatrists and psychoanalysts in training. Later, as Lacan's thought goes more and more original and as his exuberant personnality - His Style - makes him known beyond the strictly psychoanalytical circles, the Séminaire becomes a kind of place in vogue where you sometimes wanted to be seen. You could see lacanian analysts, some patients of these analysts, students, artists or intellectuals (for example, Philippe Sollers is known for frequenting the Séminaire in the 70's). At this time, Lacan often complains about the growing size of his audience.
 +
 
 +
Initially started at the Hôpital Sainte-Anne (Paris, 1953-1963), the Séminaire continues at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure (Paris, 1964-1969) with the help of Louis Althusser and Claude Lévi-Strauss when Lacan is banned from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1963 (his Séminaire becomes unwelcome at Sainte-Anne). Finally, the last Séminaires take place in the Faculté de Droit Panthéon (Paris, 1969-1980).
  
−
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.
+
Every year, during the first session, Lacan announces a title, a theme. The early Séminaires are mostly centered on commenting the main classical psychoanalysis concepts (the Ego, the transference, the indentification, etc.). Later, themes and titles became more strictly lacanian (sometimes based on homophonies and puns) as the concepts and their models (logic or topologic) become really specific and personal.
  
−
== Speech ==
+
Very few sessions were previously written up by Lacan, so a stenographer had to transcribe the whole sessions (http://www.ecole-lacanienne.net/bibliotheque.php?id=13). However, at the present time, only 12 Séminaires out of 27 have been published. The composition of a text from the stenographies (or even from the audio material) has always seemed to come up against the fundamentally oral nature of Lacan's teaching and his totally improvising style. The first official publications of the Séminaire started in the early 70's, but in such a slowly rate that many unofficial versions of unpublished Séminaires have immediatly spread into the psychoanalysts circles.
−
Given Lacan's insistence that speech is the only medium of psychoanalysis (E, 40), it is perhaps appropriate that the original means by which Lacan developed and expounded his ideas should have been the spoken word.
 
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Indeed, as one commentator has remarked; 'It must be recalled that virtually all of Lacan's "writings" (…crits) were originally oral presentations, that in many ways the open-ended Seminar was his preferred environment' (Macey, 1995: 77).
 
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As Lacan's seminars 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 seminars. 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. 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. 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.
 
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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 (see Miller, 1985). So far only nine of the yearly seminars 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.
 
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The titles of each year (or each 'book') of the seminar, are listed on p. 177.  The original French titles and publication details are listed in the bibliography at the end of this dictionary.
 
  
 +
The first known private audio recordings of the Séminaire seems to date from 1969. Curiously, despite Lacan's famous verve or grandiloquence and his matchless improvising oral style, none of the 500 sessions has been cleanly and officially recorded (neither audio nor video).
  
 
== Definition ==
 
== Definition ==
Line 23: Line 38:
 
Another form of academic teaching is lecturing, a form which involves larger student groups with less active participation. 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.
 
Another form of academic teaching is lecturing, a form which involves larger student groups with less active participation. 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.
  
 +
--
 +
 +
 +
[[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 [[seminar]]s 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 [[seminar]]s that make up [[Lacan]]'s [[seminar]] are as follows:
 +
 +
Because [[Lacan]] was old and ill, seminar 27 was not delivered publicly but only published.
  
 +
It dealt with the dissolution of his school,École freudienne de Paris (Freudian School of Paris).
  
  

Latest revision as of 05:47, 1 November 2006

I would suggest that a better way to read Lacan is through the seminars and the accompanying Readings published by SUNY Press (see 'Works on Jacques Lacan' below).

The seminar is unquestionably an unusual reading experience.

Each seminar contains approximately 25 presentations from the fortnightly seminar (although they get shorter as Lacan reduces his theory to a set of mathematical formulas in his final years).

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.

So, however bewildering the seminar might seem, it is always worth following it through.

From the currently published seminars a good place to start would be Seminars II, VII and XI.


seminar (séminaire)


From 1953 to 1980, the Séminaire of the french psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) is the laboratory, the work-in-progress for his « Return to Freud » project. A return to the real meaning of Freud's discovery, including the recent contributions made by linguistics (Saussure, Jakobson) and structural anthropology (Lévi-Strauss), and then through formal logic and topology.

Lacan's Séminaire was a singular place and moment, almost weekly, every year from november to june. Without any connection with university, it was public and open to everyone. In the beginning, Lacan reads through again and comments on the works of Freud for a limited audience made of psychiatrists and psychoanalysts in training. Later, as Lacan's thought goes more and more original and as his exuberant personnality - His Style - makes him known beyond the strictly psychoanalytical circles, the Séminaire becomes a kind of place in vogue where you sometimes wanted to be seen. You could see lacanian analysts, some patients of these analysts, students, artists or intellectuals (for example, Philippe Sollers is known for frequenting the Séminaire in the 70's). At this time, Lacan often complains about the growing size of his audience.

Initially started at the Hôpital Sainte-Anne (Paris, 1953-1963), the Séminaire continues at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure (Paris, 1964-1969) with the help of Louis Althusser and Claude Lévi-Strauss when Lacan is banned from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1963 (his Séminaire becomes unwelcome at Sainte-Anne). Finally, the last Séminaires take place in the Faculté de Droit Panthéon (Paris, 1969-1980).

Every year, during the first session, Lacan announces a title, a theme. The early Séminaires are mostly centered on commenting the main classical psychoanalysis concepts (the Ego, the transference, the indentification, etc.). Later, themes and titles became more strictly lacanian (sometimes based on homophonies and puns) as the concepts and their models (logic or topologic) become really specific and personal.

Very few sessions were previously written up by Lacan, so a stenographer had to transcribe the whole sessions (http://www.ecole-lacanienne.net/bibliotheque.php?id=13). However, at the present time, only 12 Séminaires out of 27 have been published. The composition of a text from the stenographies (or even from the audio material) has always seemed to come up against the fundamentally oral nature of Lacan's teaching and his totally improvising style. The first official publications of the Séminaire started in the early 70's, but in such a slowly rate that many unofficial versions of unpublished Séminaires have immediatly spread into the psychoanalysts circles.

The first known private audio recordings of the Séminaire seems to date from 1969. Curiously, despite Lacan's famous verve or grandiloquence and his matchless improvising oral style, none of the 500 sessions has been cleanly and officially recorded (neither audio nor video).

Definition

A seminar is a form of academic teaching, at a university or offered by a commercial or professional organization, in small groups where students are requested to actively participate during meetings. This often has to be done by presenting a paper in class and also in written form. Normally, participants must not be beginners. The idea behind seminars is to confront students with the methodology of their chosen subject and also to familiarise them with practical problems that might crop up during their research work. Often a seminar will be open to discussion, where questions can be raised and debates conducted.

Another form of academic teaching is lecturing, a form which involves larger student groups with less active participation. 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.

--


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:

Because Lacan was old and ill, seminar 27 was not delivered publicly but only published.

It dealt with the dissolution of his school,École freudienne de Paris (Freudian School of Paris).


References

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