Academic literature on the topic 'Jacques Lacan theory of subjectivity'

Jacques Lacan’s theory of the subject is put forward in order to correct what the author calls “the naïve theory of the subject,” which sociologists of religion tend to utilize by default in numerous quantitative sociological studies based on mass surveys and oriented towards obtaining exact, scientific, positivistic knowledge. This article applies Lacan’s three registers—Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real—to the religious sphere and demonstrates their potential implications for the sociological analysis of religion. An analysis of the empirical research on Russia’s post-Soviet religious situation reinforces the author’s argument that an uncritical theory of the subject attends only to the superficial layers of the subject, which end up being devoid of actual subjectivity, according to Lacanian logic. The more fundamental layers of the subject, capable of making it “the subject” in the full sense of the word, seem to be completely outside of sociologists’ current field of vision. This critique directs the reader’s attention to the shortcomings of sociological surveys, and the author argues that a more robust understanding of the subject could enrich the sociology of religion, particularly by further developing certain conceptions, such as Grace Davie’s “vicarious religion.”

Jacques Lacan comments repeatedly on anamorphic art as it exemplifies for him how the mind from a certain angle perceives through law-like patterns the world that would otherwise be nothing but a chaos of arbitrary multiplicities. The angle, though, has a certain effect on what is perceived; an effect that, as such, cannot be perceived within the realm of experience. The article tries to make the link between diffraction laws of perception more explicit in the subject-object dichotomy and refers for that purpose to the work of both Hegel and Lacan. A reference to Hegel is necessary, as Hegel was not only one of Lacan’s own most important sources of insights, but the author who first focused on justified true belief through a theory of a missed encounter between truth and knowledge.

This article offers to the field of organization studies and the critique of Human Resource Management (HRM) important theoretical insight implied by the ‘practical anti-humanism’ in Jacques Lacan’s theory of subjectivity. Drawing on Lacan’s notions of ontological lack and fantasy, it suggests that this anti-humanism may provide a challenge of the critical aspirations found in the studies of HRM that have maintained an insurmountable gap between the humanity of the human subject and the inhumanity of the managerial prescription. Turning the traditional critique on its head, the article explores the consequences of confronting the inhuman core of humanity itself instead of maintaining the humanity of the human by exposing the inhumanity of HRM. Following Lacan it questions the idealization of ‘the human’ and asks what it would mean to critical management studies to focus instead on the fallibilities and shortcomings of subjectivity.

Abstract This essay critiques the practice of childhood genital surgery for intersex/disorders of sex development. The essay draws on the sociology of perception and poststructuralist theory (in particular Jacques Lacan) to analyze the subject position offered by surgery as a function of the impersonal gaze that precedes subjectivity. Even though early surgery appears to be justified on the basis that children have an innate need to see sexual difference in order to identify as female or male, this argument in favor of surgery collapses when we recognize that sexual difference is not a thing that can be seen by any individual but a spacing between bodies that is apparent only to the gaze. The essay suggests additionally that intersex studies can collaborate with trans* studies to interrogate medicalization and consider sexual difference as multidimensional rather than binary.

It seems rather obvious that Jacques Lacan’s theory is Freudian psychoanalysis combined with structural linguistics. But it is not so conclusive: in Lacan’s work we can find many elements with different origins to linguistics. Moreover, Lacan’s subversion of structuralist theses makes any unambiguous assignment impossible. In the article, the author describes the evolution of Lacan’s theory of language and its consequences for the issue of subjectivity in psychoanalysis resulting from the use of linguistic tools.

Abstract Within a Lacanian psychoanalytic framework, this paper examines the aesthetic effects of Edgar Allan Poe's poem “The Raven” (1845), specifically those effects produced by the poem's sublime architectonics of present-absence. While critics have examined the role of the sublime and uncanny in the poem, most of these studies have focused on providing an historical context for Poe's aesthetics or establishing cultural sources for the poem's symbolic imagery. By contrast, I aim to demonstrate that both the form and content of “The Raven” anticipate the psychoanalytic, specifically Freudian-Lacanian, concept of das Ding—the mythical “Thing”—which Jacques Lacan, in Seminar VII, argues is the lost object “attached to whatever is open, lacking, or gaping at the center of our desire.” Because, according to Lacan's theory, this concept names the void around which human subjectivity forms and all subsequent desire turns, art functions, in essence, to “creat[e] the void and thereby introduce[e] the possibility of filling it.” In this paper, I examine both how the void is staged through aesthetic means in “The Raven” and “filled” by the enigmatic raven, which takes on the function of a sublime object in the speaker's fantasy.

Abstract This article is a philosophical examination of the social media culture of fitness and the behavior which most distinctly characterizes it. Of the numerous and varied digital subcultures emerging with the rise of photo-based social media during the 2010s, the culture surrounding fitness, or “fitspiration,” stands out as one of the more notable. Research has identified the phenomenon as consisting to a large extent of users engaging in behaviors of self-sexualization and self-objectification, following, not unexpectedly, the inherent focus within fitness on the body, its maintenance and ultimately its appearance. Research also demonstrates that, for many, viewing and engaging in this behavior is linked to a deterioration of body-image, general self-perception and mental well-being. In this article, I analyze the phenomenon within a philosophical framework in which I combine the philosophical theory of Jean Baudrillard on media and the consumption of signs and the psychoanalytic perspective of Jacques Lacan on subjectivity, narcissism and desire. Using this framework, I discuss the body assuming the properties of a commodified object deriving its cultural value and meaning from the signs which adorn it, resulting in the “fitspiration” user imperative becoming the identification with an artificial object alien to the self, necessitating a narcissistically oriented, yet pernicious self-objectification. I argue that “fitspiration,” as well as the photo-based social media which both enables and defines it, indulges narcissism, detrimentally exaggerating the narcissistic inclinations lying at the center of subjectivity.

Structure was a key signifier, and a logical quilting point, informing Jacques Lacan’s return to Freud, which amounted to his reinvention of the unconscious as structured like a language. Lacan read, and reinvigorated, Sigmund Freud’s classic texts primarily through the lenses of Ferdinand de Saussure’s structural linguistics and Claude Lévi-Strauss’s structural anthropology—not mentioning Hegelianism (via Kojève), surrealism, and mathematics as other equally important lenses. The structure of subjectivity was the central question for both Freud and Lacan. While the former understood psychic structure in terms of topography, the latter explicated it through topology. What then of the structure of Ian Parker’s recently published book?

ABSTRACT THE REAL AND THE IMAGINARY THRESHOLDS OF OTTOMAN SUBJECTIVITY TaStan, CoSkun Ph.D., Department of Sociology Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Erdogan YILDIRIM March 2010, 262 pages. This work examines the nature of frames that restrict our perspectives and thus give birth to such sociological entities like societies, communities and nations. How is the dualism of &ldquo
inside-outside&rdquo
created on sociological and psychic levels? More importantly, what instruments play what kind of roles in the creation of that dualism? Examining the formation of Ottoman subjectivity as a case, this study gives original answers to these questions. The psychoanalytic theory, which opened a new methodological domain for the social sciences in the past century, productively accommodated a good amount of works on these questions. Sigmund Freud&rsquo
s pioneering works on the dynamics of human psyche and Jacques Lacan&rsquo
s theories of human subjectivity played important roles in the improvement of this domain. Beginning from the second half of the past century, discussions on identity and belonging, as well as such furious social questions as nationalism, racism and xenophobia, have been held in the light of the new approaches of psychoanalytic theories in the field of social sciences. In this sense, this study can be seen as a part of those approaches, because methodologically, it bases itself on the opportunities offered by a particular psychoanalytic theory, namely, that of a French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan. I pick up two of Lacan&rsquo
s productively scrutinized concepts, namely the &ldquo
real&rdquo
and the &ldquo
imaginary&rdquo
, to develop a particular perspective towards this question: How is the dualism of inside-outside created in different contexts throughout the Ottoman history, so that this dualism could give birth to Ottoman subjectivity? Taking the two Lacanian concepts as a base, I analyze the instruments that play the role of &ldquo
thresholds&rdquo
in the formation of the dualism of &ldquo
inside-outside&rdquo
, under two general headings: The &ldquo
real thresholds&rdquo
and the &ldquo
imaginary thresholds&rdquo
. To put in a very brief manner, a &ldquo
real threshold&rdquo
is born out of any material obstacle that puts restrictions of any kind to the abilities of human body (natural obstacles like mountains, rivers and oceans, as well as designed obstacles like any object of war architecture, for instance, fall into this heading). Imaginary thresholds, on the other hand, are the &ldquo
images of selves&rdquo
that reflect back to us on the social ground, just in the same manner as our mirror-images come back to us and provide us with a subjective feeling of self (like the diplomatic texts and the mythologies). Although I borrow the two Lacanian terms (i.e. real and imaginary) to build up a theory of thresholds, I do not hesitate to bend and reshape those concepts whenever necessary, to build the conceptual tools into a rather ergonomic manner.

The screen, as recent studies in a number of fields indicate, is a cultural object due for critical reappraisal. Work on the theoretical status of screen objects tends to focus upon the materialisation of surface; in other words, it attempts to rethink the relationship between the supposedly 'superficial' facade and the 'functional' object itself. I suggest that this work, while usefully chipping away at the dichotomy between the 'superficial' and the 'functional', can lead us to a more radical conclusion when read in the context of subjectivity. By rethinking the relationship between the surface and the obverse face of the screen as the terms of a dialectic, we can ‘read’ the screen as the vital component in a process which constitutes the Subject. In order to demonstrate this, I analyse productions of subjectivity in literary texts of the twenty-first century — in doing so, I assume the novel as nonpareil arena of the dramatisation of subjectivity — and I propose a reading of the work of Jacques Lacan as hitherto unacknowledged theorist par excellence of the form and function of the screen. Lacan describes, with the function of desire and the formation of the screen of fantasy, the primary position this ‘screen-form' inhabits in the constitution of the Subject. Lacan’s work forms a critical juncture through which we must proceed if we are to properly read and understand the chosen texts: The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber; The Tain by China Miéville; Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood; and Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald. In each text, I analyse the particular materialisations of the screen and interrogate the constitution of the subject and the locus of desire. By analysing the vicissitudes of subjectivity in these texts, I make a claim for the study of the screen as constituting a central question in the field of contemporary literature.

This thesis examines how the fiction of Joseph Conrad anticipates and enacts the elaborate model of subjectivity that is later formalised in the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan. While modernist criticism has often utilised the work of post‐structuralism in reading key texts of modernism, the complexity and profundity of the conceptual relationship between Conrad and Lacan has not yet been explored in depth. Conrad’s work captures the impact and influence of emerging transnational capital upon forms of the subject in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Further, his fiction is also sensitive to how nascent global capital structures forms of space that the subject is embedded within in their daily experience. I argue that it is the intricate and finely woven theories of Lacan that are necessary in identifying this area of the novelist’s work, as Lacan’s model contends with both the individual psychic structure of the subject, and, crucially, how the individual is located and constituted within the broader matrix of social reality. Using four of Conrad’s novels from his early period to the end of his major phase, the thesis traces the evolution of the various fundamental modalities of Lacan’s subject across Conrad’s fiction. I examine how Almayer’s Folly offers the key tenets of Lacan’s primary model of the subject of desire, while Lord Jim presents the transition of the subject of desire into Lacan’s later mode of the subject of drive. Subsequently, The Secret Agent is shown to critique the role of rationalism in the structuring of the subject’s consciousness, while, finally, I read Under Western Eyes as a tour de force of Lacan’s four discourses. The deep and fundamental relationship between the two figures’ work attests to their acuity in observing the development of the subject in the twentieth century, while the method of theoretical analysis also, on a wider disciplinary level, suggests and helps to confirm the continued validity of the mode of deep reading in literary interpretation.

In 1900, Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, establishing climacteric concepts for psychoanalysis and creating a structure upon which he built the theory and his career. 20 years later, he had entirely revised these concepts that solidified the foundation of psychoanalysis. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), Freud notably theorizes the ‘death drive’ for the first time, a radical but necessary break from the economics of the pleasure principle. Often, the death drive is taken to be the most important contribution of this essay, but I argue that the lasting message to be gleaned from Freud is what he concludes Beyond the Pleasure Principle with: “We must be ready, too, to abandon a path that we have followed for a time, if it seems to be leading to no good end. Only believers, who demand that science shall be a substitute for the catechism they have given up, will blame an investigator for developing or even transforming his views.” In this thesis, I argue that we can develop a necessary Ethic from this way that Freud approached the formation of his work. Drawing on the further developments from Jacques Lacan, I claim that one can take theory of the gaze as an ethical moment: the point at which one is faced with a disruption that they are tasked to carry out “to see where it will lead,” as Freud puts it. Further, I utilize this formation of the Ethic to read the films of Abbas Kiarostami’s “Koker trilogy” to highlight the points at which we can locate the characters, form, and content of these films as realizations of such ethical moments.

Since the late seventies, the violence, speed and spectacle associated with the genres of war films, Westerns and the spectacular melodramas of early cinema have developed into a distinct genre of its own – the action film. With the development of the stylistic language at the core of this generic universe came derogatory generalisations and a tendency to categorise simplistically. To overcome these simplifications, this thesis explores the shifts in generic language to distinguish its subtleties and complexities of logic. Overwhelmingly the genre is considered masculine, but the purpose of this thesis is to explore the logic of this masculinity and analyse the effect of the feminine upon it. Beginning with overviews of the theoretical attempts to grasp the concept of genre that focus primarily on the limitations of the view of their having distinct boundaries, the theory that genre theory has failed is investigated. Leaving this view of boundaries through an exploration of symbolic universes that have translucent boundaries, the filmic movement of genre passes back and forth through the theoretical frameworks. The intention is not to analyse the overall concept of genre, but to focus on the symbolic universe and the language intrinsic to action films. The rules of action cannot be simply transposed onto other generic categories but stand-alone. Genre theory does not fail if approached from a perspective of discourse analysis focusing on the development of symbolic universes. Using Jacques Lacan’s theory of the four discourses, and focusing primarily on the oppositions of the Master’s and the Analyst’s discourse, the question moves from the listing of conventions as the markers of the boundaries of genre, to exploring why the combination of certain conventions and signifiers coming together created the genre. Through Lacanian discourse analysis it becomes apparent that the generally acknowledged logic of masculine and feminine are limited. The masculine is the ‘norm’ that appears to need no explanation, but the feminine has transgressed the norm and shown the construction of fantasy inherent in the genre. This has led to post-action films that are ambiguous both in their generic structure and symbolic language.

Bien que le thème de la pulsion de mort soit souvent perçu à travers un processus biologique de destruction ou de régression à un état de nirvana comme l’affirme Freud, il est cependant utilisé ici sous une perspective spéculative pour penser son statut en s’inscrivant dans les réflexions qui prendraient part à une confrontation, et dans le même temps, une articulation entre Jacques Lacan et Hegel. De sorte que la mort, à travers la détermination ontologique permet d’ouvrir la voie pour étudier la psychanalyse à la frontière de l’être et du penser, non seulement dans sa dialectique avec le sujet et le signifiant, mais également dans son appartenance, par le sujet et sa pensée à son rapport ineffaçable avec l’impensé, ce qui conduit à la constitution de la dépossession, la perte et la destitution de l’identification du Moi spéculaire.Dans cette perspective, le concept de dialectique constitue le point de départ méthodologique pour réfléchir sur le thème de la mort à partir de son statut logique/ontologique et de son déroulement signifiant soutenu par un “examen” sceptique en tant que moment essentiel de le traitement psychanalytique, conduisant ainsi à rendre compte de la subjectivité et de sa brèche/ faille constitutionnelle comme une menace, toujours présente, de désintégration et de négativité.Quant au scepticisme, il est un autre point de départ à cette réflexion et l’origine d’un déplacement vers un regard de la psychanalyse qui va au-delà du domaine clinique. En partant de la fonction de la négation, qui semble s’inscrire comme énonciation sceptique, et à partir de questions à propos de la dissolution, la disparition ou particulièrement, l’abolition [l’aufhebung] du sujet comme lieu impossible dans sa subjectivité en manque, dont l’expression psychique est en concordance avec la déchirure interne que représente le clivage, manifestée à travers le sujet barré, ce travail considère la possibilité d’un regard ontologique de la psychanalyse. Celui-ci supposerait la mort comme ce qui instaure une expérience scripturaire de négativité et qui va jusqu’à désigner l’espace spécifique de l’activité sceptique comme examen qui dirige l’aspect tragique dans le traitement psy
The theme of the pulsion of death is, sometimes, understood in the light of a biologic principle of destruction or regression to a state of nirvana as stated by Freud, nonetheless, here it is mobilized in a speculative perspective to think its status by inscribing the reflections that would take place in a confrontation and, at the same time, articulation between Jacques Lacan and Hegel. Thus, death, under the ontological determination, allows to open the way to study psychoanalysis at the border between the being and the thinking, not only in its dialectics with the subject and the signifier but also in its belonging, by the subject and his thought, to his/her indelible relation to the unthought which involves the formation of dispossession, loss and removal of the identification of the mirrored self. From this perspective, the concept of dialectics constitutes the methodological starting point to reflect about the theme of death from their logical/ontological status and its significant development mantained by a skeptical “exam” as an essential moment in the psychoanalytic cure, involving the realisation of the subjectivity and its constitutional gap/failure as an ever-present threat of disintegration and negativity.As far as it is concerned, skepticism is another starting point of this reflection and the origin of a shift towards a view of psychoanalysis that goes beyond the clinic. As of the role of negation, which we believe it is inscribed as a skeptical utterance, as well as questions about the dissolution, disappearance or specifically abolition [l'Aufhebung] of the subject as an impossible place in his/her missing subjectivity whose psychic expression is in agreement with the internal tear that means split, manifested through the barred subject. This paper considers the possibility of an ontological view of psychoanalysis that would suppose the death as that that institutes a scripturaire experience of negativity and that even designates the specific space of the skeptical activity as an examination that directs the tragic aspect of the psychoanalytic cure.But, how does this displacement of a psychoanalytic clinic operate towards an ontology of psychoanalysis? What is at stake in the movement of the signifying chain inasmuch so a dialectical process that "remains" and that "opposes/sursumée"? To what extent does skepticism appear as a suitable tool for the "exam" and a particular interpretation not just of the unconscious but, also, of the personal history of the subject in its aspect of their subjectivity dislocated?
El tema de la pulsión de muerte siendo, a menudo, entendido a la luz de un principio biológico de destrucción o regresión a un estado de nirvana tal y como lo afirma Freud, sin embargo, aquí es movilizada en una perspectiva especulativa para pensar su estatuto inscribiéndose en las reflexiones que tomarían partida en una confrontación y, al mismo tiempo, articulación entre Jacques Lacan y Hegel. De suerte que la muerte, bajo la determinación ontológica, permite abrir la vía para estudiar el psicoanálisis en las fronteras entre el ser y el pensar, no solo en su dialéctica con el sujeto y el significante sino también en su pertenencia, por parte del sujeto y su pensamiento, a su relación imborrable con lo impensado lo que conlleva la constitución de la desposesión, la perdida y destitución de la identificación del Yo especular. Desde esta perspectiva, el concepto de dialéctica constituye el punto de inicio metodológico para reflexionar el tema de la muerte a partir de su estatuto lógico/ontológico y su desenvolvimiento significante sostenido por un “examen” escéptico en cuanto momento esencial en la cura psicoanalítica, conllevando así a dar cuenta de la subjetividad y su brecha/falla constitucional como una amenaza siempre presente de desintegración y negatividad. Por su parte, el escepticismo es otro punto de partida de esta reflexión y el origen de un desplazamiento hacia una mirada del psicoanálisis que va mas allá de lo clínico. Partiendo de la función de la negación, que a nuestro parecer se inscribe como enunciación escéptica, así como también de preguntas acerca de la disolución, la desaparición o específicamente la abolición [l’aufhebung] del sujeto como lugar imposible en su subjetividad en falta cuya expresión psíquica esta en concordancia con el desgarro interno que significa la escisión, manifestada a través del sujeto barrado, este trabajo considera la posibilidad de una mirada ontológica del psicoanálisis que supondría la muerte como aquello que instituye una experiencia scripturaire de negatividad y que hasta designa el espacio específico de la actividad escéptica como examen que dirige el aspecto trágico en la cura psicoanalítica. Pero, como se opera este desplazamiento de una clínica psicoanalítica hacia una ontología del psicoanálisis? Qué es lo que está en juego en el movimiento de la cadena significante en cuanto un proceso dialectico que « permanece » y que se « opone/sursumée » ? En qué medida el escepticismo aparece como una herramienta apropiada para el “examen” y una interpretación particular no solo del inconsciente sino, también, de la historia personal del sujeto en su aspecto de su subjetividad dislocada?Apoyándonos en algunos elementos del pensamiento Hegeliano como las determinaciones-de-reflexión, la lógica de la Esencia, la diferencia y la contradicción y, en particular, sobre los textos de Lacan relacionado con el goce, la falta y el Otro esta investigación interroga la lógica/ontológica de la muerte para postular una apertura del psicoanálisis

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo: Compreender a lógica da ética da psicanálise partindo de uma análise das formulações propostas por Lacan no Seminário VII, comparando-a com a lógica que formaliza as formas de gozo do Seminário XX, e articulando as possibilidades de uma releitura da ética a partir de tal lógica. Para tanto precorremos o seguinte caminho para nossa pesquisa: Primeiramente, analisaamos o panorama ético do Seminário VII, partindo da critica lacaniana à ética de Aristóteles e de Kant; em seguida discutir os impasses da ética apresentados no Seminário VII, marcando a lógica da sexuação como uma escolha possível de Lacan para a formalização desses impasses; finalmente, utilizar as modalidades lógicas resultantes do modos de gozo tal como Lacan as articula no Seminário XX, na releitura das proposições do seminário da ética. Do ponto de vista do método, trata-se de uma pesquisa teórico-conceitual, epistemologicamente orientada, cujo eixo metodológico principal é uma análise comparativa entre duas abordagens distintas de Lacan sobre o tema da ética. Nossa intenção é contrapor os conceitos envolvidos em ambas as abordagens, retirando desse embate consequências teorias e praticas para a ética da psicanálise; também intencionamos, contrapor as lógicas que sustentam cada momento do ensino de Lacan, marcando as similitudes e as diferenças
The objective of the present work is: understanding the logic of the ethics of psychoanalysis initiating from an analysis of the formulations proposed by Lacan in Seminar VII comparing it with the logic that formalises the forms of jouissance in Seminar XX and articulating the possibilities of a reassessment of the ethic related to such logic. To do so, we proceeded along the following path in our research: firstly, we analysed the ethical panorama of Seminar VII from the Lacanian critique to the ethics of Aristotle and Kant; then, we continued discussing the obstacles of the ethics presented in Seminar VII setting out the logic of sexuation as a possible choice of Lacan for the formalisation of these obstacles. Finally, we utilized the logical manner resulting from the varying modes of jouissance as Lacan articulates them in Seminar XX in the rereading of the proposals of the seminar on ethics. From the point of view of the method followed, it is theoretical-conceptual research, epistemologically oriented, the methodological axis of which is a comparative analysis between two distinct approaches of Lacan regarding the ethical theme. Our intention is to compare and contrast the concepts involved in both approaches, observing from this discussion the theoretical and practical consequences for the ethics of psychoanalysis. We also proposed to contrast the logic which constantly underpins the teaching of Lacan, pinpointing both the similarities and differences