| Lutecium a non-school of Lacanian/Freudian Psychoanalysis San Francisco, California |
| Lacan and the Other Jouissance. Seminar Description by Rebecca Bauknight Ph.D. December 2008 |
In our last seminar we looked closely at the graph of sexuation outlined by Lacan Encore Seminar XX-- which posed that both feminine
and masculine sexuation is determined by the sinthome as it relates to an affinity on the side of the phallic exchange for
completeness and totality; this would include the historical privileging of logic as a dominant social world view, or as regards to an
affinity with feminine jouissance which lays in excess or outside of castration/dominant social exchange. Lacan created the sinthome
as a marked departure from his earlier notion of symptom which was accessible through deciphering and linguistically decoding the
unconscious. Sinthome was an aspect of the jouissance connected to the real—that remains undecipherable.
We discussed the feminine position as, in fact, the site of a perceived castration, in that lack would appear to be the opposite of
“totality.” However, there is a clear sense that this position cannot be so clearly written due to its inability to be inscribed. Therefore, it
cannot be logically deduced—due to its ineffable quality. The phallic is much more determined by the big other or superego
determinants. The feminine position is determined by that which belongs in the domain of the object a. The object a remains
inaccessible.
This discussion led to interesting thoughts and ideas regarding the “idea” of an “objective social reality” and an emphasis on the
“social link”---as a privileging of the symbolic with certain predilection for fetishizing and accomodating God/Institution/External
structure/famous Other at the expense of recognizing the central force of jouissance within the subjects relation to both imaginary and
symbolic registers. Kristopher Lichtanski (candidate) wondered if the cultural abjection of male homoeroticism vs. female
homoeroticism ,might in fact, be structured upon the phallic’s insistence on its “totality” in the most biological and concrete sense. Any
reference to “lack” on the side of the male through metaphorical concept of open and receptive rims within the body would naturally be
sealed.
Lacan’s initial seminars focused on the symbolic and the imaginary. There is much emphasis on the symptom related to the
relationship to “law” or symbolic. Hence, the division of the subject (the divided subject is frequently understood as the break in the
imaginary/mirror stage-necessitated by the acquisition of language and entrance into the symbolic). Frederic Declercq notes that from
Seminar XI (1964) to date, Lacan began to emphasize the “Real” within jouissance as the difficult to resolve aspect of the symptom.
Here the notion of jouissance as fundamental to the structure of sexuation and fantasm take root. The tearing away of the body in the
real, which would then defy any attempt at substitution through the symbolic is ultimately where the symptom of sexuation resides. The
idea that the fantasm could be crossed through inscription or logic or that the fantasm can be completely crossed is a question. A
question that philosophy, science desires to complete and answer fully, perhaps to seal the open ended universe that we cannot
digest “totally” absorb and inscribe.
By beginning to understand the division of the subject between the subject and the jouissance of the symptom which is somewhat
situated beyond digestion and incorporation, the question of psychoanalysis becomes not one of the subject in relation to a capacity to
smoothly adapt to the given social arena, but rather the question becomes where does the subject fall in relation to a unique and
unary symptom, jouissance vs. the times, the culture, politics in which one is thrown? The question becomes where does the subject
locate him/herself with regard to the unique particularity of the symptom and the subject’s social field which is also determined by a set
of individual subjects with symptoms? Note that science, technology, anything inscribed is not inscribed through perfection but towards
perfection. Badiou, philosophically, and Matthew Barney, aesthetically, return to Lacan’s interest in rupture, beginning, the site of the
speaking subject. What are the consequences to the multiple potential choices that each subject has regarding where he/she decides
to move in life? Where are the moments within the practice of psychoanalysis where the subject is (castrated, or utilizing new signifiers
beyond the external and internal edicts that previously isolated jouissance within the symptom)? How does the psychoanalyst enable
unanticipated and spontaneous speech to move beyond the analysts own autoregressive tendency to incorporate and digest meaning
within the incestuous (familiar) and the safe? New is dangerous. There are consequences to both movements. The former is
stagnancy. The latter may lead to failure, impotence. Where does the analyst allow the uncanny to reside, the other to reside?
Lacan left us with increasingly important questions for those of us who desire to represent a psychoanalytic space that invites a
continuous rereading, of all tenets, politics, and institutions that are critical in setting up the parameters of human freedom and the
definition of human existence within political, social institutions--- as well as within the deeply intimate and personal journey of being
human. These are inseparable bodies. The bodies of knowledge that we are born into, and the particular 3D experiences we are
subject to and then attempt to move into language to retrospectively “understand”. The questioning of the parameters of knowledge
enable the pursuit and continuation of understanding and philosophical speculation through the very personal odyssey of
psychoanalysis—as thought systems, the person, symptom and the unconscious, according to Lacan can never be fully separated.
Thus allowing the potential for the sinthome, jouissance, to interrupt text, theory, writing, reading to trace the unconscious, allowing the
subject to open to infinite potential positions to reconfigure the symptom relative to the Other as well as the personal intimate and
missing object a…that which remains undecipherable… outside of commodity… consumption… and empiricism.
Following a review of Lacan’s sexuation graph, we will explore articles by Tom Hayes on Bernini’s “Ecstasy of St Theresa,” Zizek’s
questions regarding the religion’s role in the midst of knowledge and jouissance as well as the jouissance of abjection and art. We will
then move into Declercq’s article on the central theme of jouissance of the real as it affects our clinical practices. Finally, we will look at
the understanding of the subject’s eruption through Badiou’s “The Subject of Art” along with a consideration of Matthew Barney’s
psychoanalytic musings and fascination with the cycle of beginnings, origination, and creativity.
and masculine sexuation is determined by the sinthome as it relates to an affinity on the side of the phallic exchange for
completeness and totality; this would include the historical privileging of logic as a dominant social world view, or as regards to an
affinity with feminine jouissance which lays in excess or outside of castration/dominant social exchange. Lacan created the sinthome
as a marked departure from his earlier notion of symptom which was accessible through deciphering and linguistically decoding the
unconscious. Sinthome was an aspect of the jouissance connected to the real—that remains undecipherable.
We discussed the feminine position as, in fact, the site of a perceived castration, in that lack would appear to be the opposite of
“totality.” However, there is a clear sense that this position cannot be so clearly written due to its inability to be inscribed. Therefore, it
cannot be logically deduced—due to its ineffable quality. The phallic is much more determined by the big other or superego
determinants. The feminine position is determined by that which belongs in the domain of the object a. The object a remains
inaccessible.
This discussion led to interesting thoughts and ideas regarding the “idea” of an “objective social reality” and an emphasis on the
“social link”---as a privileging of the symbolic with certain predilection for fetishizing and accomodating God/Institution/External
structure/famous Other at the expense of recognizing the central force of jouissance within the subjects relation to both imaginary and
symbolic registers. Kristopher Lichtanski (candidate) wondered if the cultural abjection of male homoeroticism vs. female
homoeroticism ,might in fact, be structured upon the phallic’s insistence on its “totality” in the most biological and concrete sense. Any
reference to “lack” on the side of the male through metaphorical concept of open and receptive rims within the body would naturally be
sealed.
Lacan’s initial seminars focused on the symbolic and the imaginary. There is much emphasis on the symptom related to the
relationship to “law” or symbolic. Hence, the division of the subject (the divided subject is frequently understood as the break in the
imaginary/mirror stage-necessitated by the acquisition of language and entrance into the symbolic). Frederic Declercq notes that from
Seminar XI (1964) to date, Lacan began to emphasize the “Real” within jouissance as the difficult to resolve aspect of the symptom.
Here the notion of jouissance as fundamental to the structure of sexuation and fantasm take root. The tearing away of the body in the
real, which would then defy any attempt at substitution through the symbolic is ultimately where the symptom of sexuation resides. The
idea that the fantasm could be crossed through inscription or logic or that the fantasm can be completely crossed is a question. A
question that philosophy, science desires to complete and answer fully, perhaps to seal the open ended universe that we cannot
digest “totally” absorb and inscribe.
By beginning to understand the division of the subject between the subject and the jouissance of the symptom which is somewhat
situated beyond digestion and incorporation, the question of psychoanalysis becomes not one of the subject in relation to a capacity to
smoothly adapt to the given social arena, but rather the question becomes where does the subject fall in relation to a unique and
unary symptom, jouissance vs. the times, the culture, politics in which one is thrown? The question becomes where does the subject
locate him/herself with regard to the unique particularity of the symptom and the subject’s social field which is also determined by a set
of individual subjects with symptoms? Note that science, technology, anything inscribed is not inscribed through perfection but towards
perfection. Badiou, philosophically, and Matthew Barney, aesthetically, return to Lacan’s interest in rupture, beginning, the site of the
speaking subject. What are the consequences to the multiple potential choices that each subject has regarding where he/she decides
to move in life? Where are the moments within the practice of psychoanalysis where the subject is (castrated, or utilizing new signifiers
beyond the external and internal edicts that previously isolated jouissance within the symptom)? How does the psychoanalyst enable
unanticipated and spontaneous speech to move beyond the analysts own autoregressive tendency to incorporate and digest meaning
within the incestuous (familiar) and the safe? New is dangerous. There are consequences to both movements. The former is
stagnancy. The latter may lead to failure, impotence. Where does the analyst allow the uncanny to reside, the other to reside?
Lacan left us with increasingly important questions for those of us who desire to represent a psychoanalytic space that invites a
continuous rereading, of all tenets, politics, and institutions that are critical in setting up the parameters of human freedom and the
definition of human existence within political, social institutions--- as well as within the deeply intimate and personal journey of being
human. These are inseparable bodies. The bodies of knowledge that we are born into, and the particular 3D experiences we are
subject to and then attempt to move into language to retrospectively “understand”. The questioning of the parameters of knowledge
enable the pursuit and continuation of understanding and philosophical speculation through the very personal odyssey of
psychoanalysis—as thought systems, the person, symptom and the unconscious, according to Lacan can never be fully separated.
Thus allowing the potential for the sinthome, jouissance, to interrupt text, theory, writing, reading to trace the unconscious, allowing the
subject to open to infinite potential positions to reconfigure the symptom relative to the Other as well as the personal intimate and
missing object a…that which remains undecipherable… outside of commodity… consumption… and empiricism.
Following a review of Lacan’s sexuation graph, we will explore articles by Tom Hayes on Bernini’s “Ecstasy of St Theresa,” Zizek’s
questions regarding the religion’s role in the midst of knowledge and jouissance as well as the jouissance of abjection and art. We will
then move into Declercq’s article on the central theme of jouissance of the real as it affects our clinical practices. Finally, we will look at
the understanding of the subject’s eruption through Badiou’s “The Subject of Art” along with a consideration of Matthew Barney’s
psychoanalytic musings and fascination with the cycle of beginnings, origination, and creativity.
| This Seminar meets 6pm - 8pm on Thursdays: 1/8, 1/22, 2/5, 2/19, 3/5, 3/19 Flood Building, 870 Market Street, San Francisco |
