Next Up: T h e D r i v e

Our series on Seminar XI ended on this week, and I couldn’t be happier with the results: 8+ hours of recorded lectures and a dozen new and expanded diagrams!

None of which would have been possible without the dynamite group of clinicians, professors, students, and independent learners who mixed it up with us along the way: Oliver, Daisy, Annastacia, Christopher, Camden, Ira, Kathryn, Gabriel, Tiffi, Nicholas, Jesse, Cody, Jakov, Chaim, Sydney, Dieter, Xingua, Alex, Gene, Nick, Deeptesh, Giulia, Barbara, Z, Aleisha, Pat, Hamza, Sean, Benedict, Sagnik, Jorge, and Camillo — thank you all for making our series on Seminar XI soar!

But back to those new and expanded diagrams. Here’s the final one we developed in the series — a pathway-infused version the Interior 8 with which Lacan ended Seminar XI, overlaid with the upper half of the Graph of Desire — and all in service to understanding, at long last, what it means to live out the drive:

Which is also why I’m writing to you now, because NEXT UP for Lectures on Lacan — thanks in large part to proddings from Berlin! — is a two-part series on THE DRIVE.

We’ll start with Freud’s breakthrough essay from 1915, review a chapter or two from Seminar XI, and conclude with two smokin’ essays from Écrits: “Position of the Unconscious” and “On Freud’s ‘Trieb’ and the Psychoanalyst’s Desire.”

If all goes according to plan, this two-part miniseries will be free for all to join, occur mid-mornings PST to allow more trans-Atlantic folk to attend, and maybe even be live-streamed on YouTube or Instagram . . . you know, for surplus enjoyment.

Stay tuned for dates, times, and an infinitely sharable Zoom link. And feel free to start spreading the word in the meantime!