Putting Lacan's Four Discourses to Work

Neill, Calum

Abstract

While Lacan’s teaching is directed much of the time toward a clinical application and the training of analysts, his writings and seminars are also replete with references to cultural objects and discussions of extra-clinical matters. This inclusive reach is reflected in the various fields of interest in which Lacan’s ideas have been embraced. This workshop will seek to bracket off the clinical to consider how one particular aspect of Lacan’s thinking can be put to work, and also the necessary pitfalls of such a non-clinical adoption of Lacanian perspectives.

Studying Lacan for the sake of studying Lacan, like playing with knots, can be a fascinating and frustrating exercise, one which defies conventional notions of utility, logic and even value. But are there ways, beyond the productively confounding and exclusively clinical, that we can learn from Lacan? Given that much in Lacan’s seminars appears to be determinedly pedagogic, there is perhaps good reason to believe that there are ways to put his ideas to work in a manner that doesn’t necessarily slip immediately into a minefield of obscurity. One potentially rich area of the seminars in this regard is the schematic discourses Lacan lays out and draws upon in his seminars of the late 1960s, particularly Seminar XVII.

This workshop will seek to explore and utilise some practical applications of the four (or five) discourses, starting from Lacan’s own framing and subsequent, and varying, development of the discourses in the seminars, we will consider critically how, and the extent to which, the discourse can be deployed to productive non-clinical ends.

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: Lacan: Clinic & Culture
• Start Date: Oct 14, 2022
• End Date: Oct 15, 2022
• Deposit Date: Jul 17, 2023