Category: Psychoanalysis
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Freud’s Journey as an Outsider: Exploring Identity and Antisemitism in Vienna’s Complex Culture
The ARTE documentary Outsider. Freud. presents Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) through a deliberately biographical and experiential lens, treating his theoretical production less as an abstract “system” and more as a sequence of intellectual responses to lived ruptures. It frames Freud’s work as developing under persistent conditions of exposure—social, familial, bodily, and political—and argues that these conditions…
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Beckett, Lacan, and the Gaze
The book advances the claim that Beckett’s visual universe can be described neither through a general theory of “modernist perception” nor through a simple psychoanalytic allegory of seeing, but only by reconstructing the specific way in which the gaze functions as an impersonal, structuring dimension where subject and world fail to meet. In forming a…
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Beckett, Lacan, and the Voice
Brown’s Beckett, Lacan and the Voice stakes its claim on a very precise terrain: it proposes that Beckett’s entire œuvre can be re-read if one takes seriously the Lacanian thesis that the voice is a specific psychoanalytic object—neither pure sound nor mere vehicle of meaning, but the residue of language that both grounds and unravels…
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Introduction to the Reading of Lacan: The Unconscious Structured Like a Language
Introduction to the Reading of Lacan: The Unconscious Structured Like a Language stakes its claim by demonstrating, with didactic patience and analytic precision, how Lacan’s structural re-founding of psychoanalysis can be reconstructed from within the field that grounds it: the speaking subject’s formations of the unconscious as they are anchored in language and staged in…
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Lacan and Other Heresies: Lacanian Pscyhoanalytical Writings
The volume’s distinctive contribution lies in its rigorous effort to reinscribe Lacanian psychoanalysis within a living practice of collective invention, rather than a doctrine of settled theses. Framed by the Freudian School of Melbourne’s long experiment with institutional forms proper to psychoanalysis and catalyzed by the Melbourne seminars of the Belgian analyst Christian Fierens, the…
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Lacanian Theory of Discourse: Subject, Structure, and Society
The volume stakes a precise claim: by reconstructing Lacan’s concept of discourse across clinical, social, and cultural registers, it offers a model in which language and what exceeds language are locked in a structured reciprocity—so that subjects are formed in discourse and yet sustain modalities of resistance through it. The distinctive contribution lies in formalizing…
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‘The Psychology of Love’ by Sigmund Freud
The Psychology of Love gathers, in a single, carefully sequenced volume, Freud’s principal inquiries into how erotic life is constituted by fantasy, conflict, and the vicissitudes of development. Its scholarly stake lies in showing—with clinical and metapsychological precision—that human sexuality is always already symbolically mediated, that desire is organized by scenes and substitutions rather than…
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The Unconscious in Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis: On Lacan and Freud
Marco Máximo Balzarini’s The Unconscious in Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis: On Lacan and Freud isolates with unusual precision the point at which two powerful explanatory regimes—neurobiological description and psychoanalytic articulation—cease to translate into one another and nevertheless cannot stop addressing the same phenomena. Its distinctive contribution is to formalize that impasse as a productive constraint on…
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The Seminars of Jacques Lacan
The Seminars of Jacques Lacan are an organized experiment in epistemic restraint and conceptual invention, a multi-decadal laboratory where psychoanalysis is made to answer for its own concepts by submitting them to the exigencies of speech, structure, and act. Their distinctive contribution is a method for holding the Freudian field at the point of maximal…
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The Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud
The Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud is a scholarly instrument designed to recalibrate access to Freud’s corpus by bringing the textual surface, the editorial scaffolding, and the translation choices into a single evidential field. Its distinctive contribution is to render visible, and therefore testable, the minute places where Freud’s…
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The Enigma of Woman: Woman in Freud’s Writings
Sarah Kofman’s The Enigma of Woman: Woman in Freud’s Writings is a disciplined reconstruction and a deliberately disconcerting defamiliarization of Freud’s scattered and chronologically asymmetrical reflections on “femininity.” It proceeds by accepting Freud’s declared interest in observation, method, and conceptual economy while patiently exposing the inner duplicities of those same appeals whenever they function as…
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‘For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor’ by Slavoj Žižek
For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor by Slavoj Žižek is a dazzling interrogation of ideology, enjoyment, and the political deadlocks of modernity. In this monumental work, Žižek builds upon a provocative premise: the combination of ignorance and enjoyment is not merely incidental to ideological discourse but is foundational to…
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Walter Kaufmann: Discovering the Mind | Volume Three: Freud, Alder, and Jung
Walter Kaufmann’s Discovering the Mind (Volume Three: Freud, Adler, and Jung) is the monumental culmination of his decades-long intellectual engagement with the traditions of Germanic thought, psychology, and philosophy. Completed just before his untimely death in 1980, this third and final instalment of Kaufmann’s trilogy solidifies his position as one of the most discerning critics…
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Mourning Freud
Madelon Sprengnether’s Mourning Freud is a penetrating exposition of the dynamics between Freud’s personal experiences of mourning and the evolution of psychoanalytic theory throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. This richly textured work unravels the psychological, biographical, and cultural dimensions of Freud’s life, situating his struggles with loss at the nexus of his theoretical framework,…
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‘Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis’ by Sigmund Freud
Few works in the field of psychology have endured with as much intellectual consequence, as much capacity to provoke thought and reflection, and as much historical gravitas as Sigmund Freud’s Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. The present edition, translated by G. Stanley Hall, is not merely a straightforward rendering of Freud’s original German text, but as…
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Lacan and Language: A Reader’s Guide to Écrits
This book stands as an extraordinarily rigorous and lucidly subtle instrument designed to guide any serious reader through the labyrinthine terrain that constitutes Jacques Lacan’s Écrits. Its authors, John P. Muller and William J. Richardson, address themselves to a daunting intellectual challenge: to bring into focus a complex variety of thought in which Jacques Lacan’s…
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Psychoanalysis after Freud: Memory, Mourning and Repetition
In Psychoanalysis After Freud: Memory, Mourning and Repetition, Judy Gammelgaard undertakes a deeply philosophical exploration of the lingering significance, as well as the profound transformations, of Freud’s psychoanalytic project in the aftermath of his momentous discoveries. Drawing on several of Freud’s lesser-known works, Gammelgaard positions herself at a contemporary interpretive vantage point from which she…
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Freud’s Memory: Psychoanalysis, Mourning and the Foreign Body
Freud’s Memory: Psychoanalysis, Mourning and the Foreign Body by Rob White is an extraordinary and challenging intellectual venture into the most recalcitrant territories of Freudian theory, a work that refashions our understanding not only of Freud’s controversial notion of inherited memory but also of the deep melancholic undertow that runs through his entire conceptual edifice.…
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Lacan and the Limits of Language
Lacan and the Limits of Language by Charles Shepherdson is an extraordinarily rigorous analysis of the intersection of psychoanalysis, philosophy, literature, and the life sciences, a painstakingly elaborate exploration that refuses the comfort of established disciplinary boundaries and invites the reader to confront, with fearless intellectual candor, the fundamental questions that arise when language meets…
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Freud and War
Marlene Belilos’ Freud and War offers a compelling account of the psychoanalytic underpinnings of human conflict, focusing on Sigmund Freud’s insights into the nature of war, the human psyche, and the dynamics of aggression. Rooted in Freud’s exchange with Albert Einstein during the rise of fascism and anti-Semitism in the early 1930s, the book delves…
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Sigmund Freud Lecture by Slavoj Žižek: Theology, Negativity, and the Death-Drive
In his Sigmund Freud Lecture delivered in Vienna, Slavoj Žižek engages with themes at the intersection of psychoanalysis, theology, and the death drive. Žižek deconstructs common misconceptions about psychoanalysis, critiques contemporary ideologies, and explores existential voids inherent in the human condition. Žižek begins by challenging the notion that psychoanalysis seeks coherent self-knowledge or alleviation of…
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The Jouissance Principle: Kant, Sade and Lacan on the Ethical Functioning of the Unconscious
In The Jouissance Principle, Christian Fierens exemplifies the Lacanian concept of jouissance, which captures the complex nuances of enjoyment as they interweave with ethics, rationality, and the unconscious. The term “jouissance,” often translated as “enjoyment,” takes on multiple dimensions in Lacanian psychoanalysis, embodying not only the pleasure derived from actions deemed ethically disapproved but also…
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Jacques Lacan: The Basics
Jacques Lacan: The Basics by Calum Neill serves as an invaluable key to unlock the complexities of Jacques Lacan’s thought, a task both Herculean and necessary, given Lacan’s profound impact on 20th-century intellectual landscape. More than just introduce Lacan, the book wrestles with his dense, often impenetrable writings, which have shaped and challenged fields as…
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Hegelian-Lacanian Variations on Late Modernity: Spectre of Madness
Alireza Taheri’s Hegelian-Lacanian Variations on Late Modernity: Spectre of Madness is a bold, unapologetically rigorous irruption into the complex dynamical exchange between Hegelian dialectics and Lacanian psychoanalysis, targeting the very heart of contemporary philosophical discourse. More than traversing familiar terrain it seeks to overturn the very paradigms that dominate the post-secular intellectual climate of our…
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Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud’s French Revolution
Psychoanalytic Politics by Sherry Turkle stands as a seminal investigation into the intersection of psychoanalysis, culture, and politics in post-1968 France. This expanded edition not only revisits the original themes with renewed vigor but also amplifies the resonance of Lacanian psychoanalysis in today’s increasingly digital and interconnected world. The book explores how a nation that…
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Jacques Lacan with Samuel Beckett
Susane Dow’s presentation explores the intriguing, albeit limited, intersection of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory and the literary works of Samuel Beckett. Unlike his extensive engagement with writers like Shakespeare and Joyce, Lacan mentions Beckett sparingly, positioning him as a “silent partner” to Joyce. Despite this silence, Beckett’s divergence from Joyce’s artistic path offers a rich…
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Freud and Philosophy: Freud against Oedipus?
Van Haute’s presentation provides a critical examination of the evolution of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, with a focus on the Oedipus complex. He begins by exploring Freud’s early work, where psychopathology was understood as emerging from psychosexual dynamics between parents and children, without the explicit reference to the Oedipus complex. He highlights Freud’s 1897 self-analysis as…
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[a]Sexual Violence and Systemic Enjoyment
Zupančič’s presentation offers an analysis of the relationship between sex, power, and the dynamics of desire. Following Oscar Wilde she explores the notion that sex is fundamentally about power rather than mere desire. This critical perspective leads to a broader discussion on systemic enjoyment and its profound political implications. The concept of sexuality as a…
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The Collected Papers of Sigmund Freud | 5 Volumes
The Collected Papers of Sigmund Freud, translated by Joan Riviere, stand as a comprehensive repository of Freud’s pioneering work in psychoanalysis. This extensive compilation offers a glimpse into the development of Freud’s theories and clinical practices. The collection, digitized for modern accessibility, spans from 1871 to 1939, presenting a narrative of Freud’s intellectual development. The…
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Philosophy After Lacan: Politics, Science, and Art
Philosophy After Lacan: Politics, Science, and Art is an intellectually robust and richly textured collection that delves into the impact of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theories on contemporary philosophical thought. Edited by Alireza Taheri, Chris Vanderwees, and Reza Naderi, this volume marks a pioneering effort to transcend historical retrospectives and instead focus on the innovative trajectories…
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Key Concepts of Lacanian Psychoanalysis
Key Concepts of Lacanian Psychoanalysis by Dany Nobus is a seminal work that immerses readers into the intricate world of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory with unprecedented depth and nuance. Nobus, recognizing Lacan’s pervasive influence across disciplines since the 1980s, confronts head-on the multifaceted debates and controversies that surround Lacanian thought. Far from a conventional introduction…
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Perversion and the Social Relation
Perversion and the Social Relation by Molly Anne Rothenberg, Slavoj Žižek, and Dennis A. Foster delves deeply into the intricate and often misunderstood role that perversion plays in the formation and sustenance of social relations. This anthology argues against the traditional stigmatization of perversion, positing it as a crucial stage in the psychic development of…
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‘Studies in Hysteria’ by Sigmund Freud & Joseph Breuer
Hysteria—the tormenting of the body by the troubled mind—is among the most pervasive of human disorders; yet, at the same time, it is the most elusive. Freud’s recognition that hysteria stemmed from traumas in the patient’s past transformed the way we think about sexuality. Studies in Hysteria is one of the founding texts of psychoanalysis,…
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The Literary Lacan: From Literature to ‘Lituraterre’ and Beyond
The relationship between literature and psychology is long and richly complex, and no more so than in the work of Jacques Lacan, the most controversial psychoanalyst since Freud. This book is dedicated to assessing Lacan’s significant contribution to literary studies and the contribution, in turn, of literature to Lacanian psychoanalysis. The first essays in this…
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In Dora’s Case: Freud, Hysteria, Feminism
Freud invented psychoanalysis between 1895 and 1900 on the basis of his clinical experience with hysterical patients, most of them women. The most provocative and intriguing of these patients was Ida Bauer, whom Freud named Dora when he published her case history as Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. This anthology of twelve…
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The Standard Edition of Freud | The Complete 24 Volumes
Embark on an intellectual odyssey through the depths of the human psyche with The Standard Edition of Freud. Within the pages of this monumental collection, meticulously translated and curated by James Strachey, Anna Freud, Alix Strachey, and Alan Tyson, lies the essence of Freud’s ground-breaking theories—a treasure trove of insights into the complexities of human behaviour,…
Simon Gros 