Lectures on Lacan Podcast

This podcast explores Lacanian psychoanalysis, discussing topics such as the relationship between negative phi and phallic shoosons, the concept of faulted and split subjectivity, the horror of anxiety, the role of 'little a' in Lacan's theory, the impact of the paternal function on desire and anxiety, time in Lacanian thought, and the connection between demand, desire, and the law of desire.

Here’s the seventh episode in our podcast on Anxiety (Seminar X), along with the formula we workshopped in the original session. If you’d like to purchase the complete series on Anxiety (Seminar X), including 18+ hours of video-recorded lectures and all of the diagrams, formulas, and mathemes we developed along the way, you can do so here: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lecturesonlacan.substack.com

Here’s the sixth episode in our podcast on anxiety, along with some of the diagram work we did in the original session:If you’d like to purchase the complete series on Anxiety (Seminar X), including 18+ hours of video-recorded lectures and all of the diagrams, formulas, and mathemes we developed along the way, you can do so here: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lecturesonlacan.substack.com

Here’s the fifth episode in our podcast on anxiety, along with two corresponding diagrams, both developed in the original session:If you’d like to purchase the complete series on Anxiety (Seminar X), including 18+ hours of video-recorded lectures and all of the diagrams, formulas, and mathemes we developed along the way, you can do so here: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lecturesonlacan.substack.com

Here’s the fourth installment in our podcast series on anxiety — along with some of the diagram work we did in the original session:If you’d like to purchase the complete series on Anxiety (Seminar X), including 18+ hours of video-recorded lectures and all of the diagrams, formulas, and mathemes we developed along the way, you can do so here: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lecturesonlacan.substack.com

Here’s episode 3 in our new series on a n x i e t y .And here are the diagrams we developed in the original session:If you’d like to purchase the complete series on Anxiety (Seminar X), including 18+ hours of video-recorded lectures and all of the diagrams, formulas, and mathemes we developed along the way, you can do so here: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lecturesonlacan.substack.com

Here’s the second episode in our new podcast series on anxiety! And here’s in image of the diagram we developed in the original session:If you’d like to purchase the complete series on Anxiety (Seminar X), including 18+ hours of video-recorded lectures and all of the diagrams, formulas, and mathemes we developed along the way, you can do so here: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lecturesonlacan.substack.com

With the winter holidays fast approaching, and perhaps some angsty family dynamics as well, it seems like a particularly good time to launch our new podcast series on . . . a n x i e t y .As many of you know, Lectures on Lacan began at the behest of an intrepid group of clinical psychology doctoral students, all of whom attended my summer 2021 seminar on “The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire” at Pacifica Graduate Institute — the same doctoral seminar which yielded the first seven episodes of this podcast!From here, we turned to Lacan’s iconic, early-1960s seminar on Anxiety (Seminar X), generating 18+ hours of recorded lectures and many new diagrams, formulas, and mathemes. It’s these materials — or at least the audio files — that will make up our new podcast series on anxiety.Since all of these materials on Seminar X were developed in a live lecture series, I expect it’ll be tricky at times to follow along with the audio recordings alone, so all of the original videos, diagrams, formulas, and mathemes will remain accessible on our Linktree, just in case you need them. And with that, on to the podcast! Here’s the first episode — along with an image of the diagram we developed in the original session:If you’d like to purchase the complete series on Anxiety (Seminar X), including 18+ hours of video-recorded lectures and all of the diagrams, formulas, and mathemes we developed along the way, you can do so here: . This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lecturesonlacan.substack.com

This episode on “Science and Truth” brings us to the end of Écrits. And in bringing us to the end of Écrits, it also offers a convenient stopping point (or maybe just a pausing place) for our podcast series on often overlooked essays in the volume — just in time, coincidentally enough, for the start of our new lecture series on The Logic of Fantasy (Seminar XIV)!This episode on “Science and Truth” also gives us a chance to summarize some of Lacan’s key thoughts on two important themes, both frequently discussed in recent episodes — namely, the subject and the object of psychoanalysis.Along the way, we also explore a host of clinical and conceptual relations, including modern scientific delusions of objectivity versus the psychoanalytic science of objectality; retroactive connections between pre-linguistic life (presence in the All alone) and properly symbolic order (presence and absence marked by the One); why 1 + 1 = 3 in the science of psychoanalysis, but the hidden third in this equation is in fact comprised of two elements; and how the Lacanian notion of truth-as-cause differs from (and perennially disrupts) our all-too-human knowledge of things. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lecturesonlacan.substack.com

This episode begins with Lacan’s account of “the cut brought about by the heteronomy of the symbolic” and ends by explaining his frequent claim that “the true father — that is, the symbolic father — is the dead father.” If you’ve ever wondered what, exactly, Lacan means by “the symbolic,” this episode’s for you.First up in the episode: imaginary triangles comprised of the child (read: fragmented body), the primary caregiver (read: maternal function), and the imaginary object (read: phallus). Our central theme: having versus being the phallus. And our primary stake throughout: a clear, coherent, tripartite definition of desire, in which desire is always (1) the desire for another body mediated through (2) the desire of another body resulting in (3) the experience of desire as another’s body. For, of, as — these are the operative terms in Lacan’s theory of desire.Next up in this episode: symbolic squares made of imaginary triangles by the name-of-the father (read: paternal function). Our central theme: the cut, gap, opening, minus-phi-turned-objet-a introduced by Mommy, Daddy, Baby Jesus, Santa Claus, Colonel Sanders, the Queen of England (R.I.P.), Aliens . . . indeed, any invokable external authority will due. And our primary stake throughout: how the nom-of-the-father begins as a non-of-the-father that effectively prohibits the maternal figure from having the phallus and the child from being it for them — but also, more fundamentally, that prohibits the child from any continuation of life without prohibition. From “no” to “no-things” to “nothing” — you know where we’re going with this: If there’s an ontology of Lacanian psychoanalysis, it’s in fact a mēontology. Along the way, this episode also considers the importance of keeping it 300 (nay, 400) when desire and law are involved, the way that the paternal metaphor staves off anxiety, the irreducible sadism of the superego, the reason wild west heroes always ride off into the sunset, why edenic states of nature aren’t blissful but utterly terrifying (Happy Halloween, y’all), and, last but not least, the difference between two keywords in Lacan’s theory of the symbolic: lost vs. loss. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lecturesonlacan.substack.com