Preludes to Seminar XVII

Lacan begins his renowned 1969-1970 seminar on The Other Side of Psychoanalysis (Seminar XVII) with a series of conceptual bangs. S1, S2, the barred subject, objet a, repetition, the death drive, sexual jouissance, surplus jouissance — the list goes on!

And all by way of review, Lacan assumes, because surely everyone knows exactly what he said about these concepts in his previous seminar, From an Other to the other (Seminar XVI). Hahaha, if only!

Which is why I’m writing to y’all today, in anticipation of the start of our upcoming donation-based series on The Other Side of Psychoanalysis, the opening lectures of which are scheduled to arrive soon — just in time for our first Zoom discussion on June 16th.

In hopes of helping with the opening pages of Seminar XVII, here is one of the middle lectures in our recent series on Seminar XVI, where several of the key concepts mentioned above are directly addressed, at least in part, and with no small amount of enjoyment. :)