Jacques Lacan: The Desire of the Other

Jacques Lacan always insisted that he was a thoroughgoing Freudian—perhaps the most orthodox Freudian of them all. A larger-than-life provocateur, Lacan’s oracular lectures and clinical innovations (including the notorious “short session”) ultimately led to his excommunication from the International Psychoanalytic Association. Yet, despite these departures from analytic orthodoxy, Lacan remained preoccupied with Freud’s writings, calling for a “return to Freud” while simultaneously offering robust critiques of ego psychology and object relations theories. In over two decades of public seminars and written work, Lacan performed a series of original readings of Freud that remain enormously influential to this day—in the fields ranging from literature to film studies, philosophy, and clinical psychoanalysis. 

This course will introduce participants to Lacan’s contributions to psychoanalysis through careful reading of selected excerpts from his Ecrits. We will discuss Lacan’s ideas about the structure of the unconscious, the Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic orders, the mirror stage, desire, and the ethics of analytic practice and clinical technique. The aim of the class will be to introduce fundamental Lacanian concepts in a way that highlights their clarity and distinctiveness.

There *is* no physical Brooklyn Institute. We hold our classes all over (thus far) Brooklyn and Manhattan, in alternative spaces ranging from the back rooms of bars to bookstores to spaces in cultural centers, including the Center for Jewish History, the Goethe-Institut, and the Barnard Center for Research on Women. We can (and do) turn any space into a classroom. You will be notified of the exact location when you register for a class.