The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialect of Desire, Part 1

If you could recommend only one essay in Écrits, which would it be? I’d probably pick “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious” — the same essay in which Lacan put the finishing touches on the graph of desire:

Is “The Subversion of the Subject” a difficult essay? You bet it is. But it's also a remarkably comprehensive introduction to Lacanian psychoanalysis.

So when Pacifica Graduate Institute asked me to introduce their clinical psychology doctoral students to Lacanian psychoanalysis, I couldn’t resist.

Here’s the opening lecture — the first of seven I delivered last summer. Stay tuned for more in the coming days!