Join our New Series on Seminar XXIV!
Join us this fall as we venture into one of Jacques Lacan’s most structurally complex and theoretically daring seminars, wonderfully titled Love Is the Failure of the Unbewoops (Seminar XXIV).
That final word, courtesy of Dan Collins, is key. Like the original French coinage on which it’s based—l’une-bévue, meaning “a blunder”—the unbewoops of Seminar XXIV points us to a striking phonetic overlap. When spoken with an English inflection, Freud’s German term for the unconscious, Unbewusste, sounds a lot like unbewoops; and when spoken with a French inflection, it sounds a lot like Lacan’s original coinage: l’une-bévue.
This trilingual pun is more than mere wordplay. By translating sound-for-sound rather than sense-for-sense, l’une-bévue and unbewoops challenge the familiar depth-psychological image of the unconscious as a hidden, subterranean reservoir of repressed content. In its place, the puns at play in Seminar XXIV invite us to redefine the unconscious as an act, stumble, or structural blunder in language—one in which the subject inadvertently says more than they intend. Where romanticized repressed interiors were, momentary slips of the tongue become.
Unbewoops galore!
Schedule of Events:
In addition to sharing recorded lectures on Seminar XXIV with all registered participants, I’ll be hosting six online discussions throughout this fall series. Here’s our meeting schedule, followed by a link to Seminar XXIV:
11 September: Zoom Discussion, 10am PST. Readings to be discussed: Lacan, Love Is the Failure of the Unbewoops (SXXIV), Chapters 1-2.
25 September: Zoom Discussion, 10am PST. Readings to be discussed: Lacan, Love Is the Failure of the Unbewoops (SXXIV), Chapters 3-4.
9 October: Zoom Discussion, 10am PST. Readings to be discussed: Lacan, Love Is the Failure of the Unbewoops (SXXIV), Chapters 5-6.
23 October: Zoom Discussion, 10am PST. Readings to be discussed: Lacan, Love Is the Failure of the Unbewoops (SXXIV), Chapters 7-8.
6 November: Zoom Discussion, 10am PST. Readings to be discussed: Lacan, Love Is the Failure of the Unbewoops (SXXIV), Chapters 9-10.
20 November: Zoom Discussion, 10am PST. Readings to be discussed: Lacan, Love Is the Failure of the Unbewoops (SXXIV), Chapters 11-12.
Registration Costs:
Registration for the complete series operates on a sliding scale. All registration tiers include full access to all recorded lectures and online discussions.
Students / Trainees: $100
Professionals: $200
Supporting: $400
Institutional: $800 (includes registration for up to 5 attendees)
Fellowship Sponsor: $1,500+ (includes registration for you and your sponsored fellow)
The Impact of Your Support:
Sustaining the Series: The Supporting and Institutional tiers sustain Lectures on Lacan, ensuring we can continue offering reduced-cost access to those who need it.
Sponsoring Scholars: The Fellowship tier directly funds an emerging scholar or clinician for the full series. You may designate a recipient or fund an open fellowship (which will be named in your honor). Your generosity will also be acknowledged in all promotional materials.
Exclusive Benefit for Sustaining Tiers:
Registrants at the Supporting, Institutional, and Fellowship levels will receive free, advance access to the first volume in our new book series: Origins of Desire & Ethics of the Drive in Lacanian Psychoanalysis.
No one will be turned away for financial reasons. Please reach out to request reduced-cost registration.
To register via Venmo, scan the QR code below or use @smlmccrmck.
To donate via PayPal, click here.
About Prof. Dr. McCormick:
Samuel McCormick, Ph.D., is an award-winning teacher and scholar. He lectures widely on Lacanian psychoanalysis, is Professor of Communication Studies at San Francisco State University, and was previously appointed as EURIAS & Marie-Curie Research Fellow at Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies in Denmark. His latest book, Origins of Desire & Ethics of the Drive in Lacanian Psychoanalysis, inaugurates the Routledge Guides to Lacan series. Learn more about Lectures on Lacan and Prof. Dr. McCormick HERE.