In this eight-week teaching seminar, we will read key texts from Lacan’s Écrits to understand his fundamental conception of psychoanalysis as a structural relationship between the subject and language. Lacan formulated three registers to conceptualize psychoanalysis: the symbolic, the imaginary, the real. Centered on Lacan’s early teachings on language and speech from Écrits, this seminar will primarily focus on understanding the function of the symbolic through which the three clinical structures of neurosis, perversion and psychosis are differentiated.
Selected texts include "Seminar on 'The Purloined Letter,'" "The Mirror Stage," "The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis," "Response to Jean Hyppolite's Commentary on Freud's 'Verneinung,'" "The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud," "On a Question Prior to Any Possible Treatment of Psychosis" and "The Signification of the Phallus." Reading these texts will provide insight into Lacan's foundational ideas about the letter, signifier, speech, the Other, the Name-of-the-Father and the phallus.
Additionally, the seminar may explore how these key Lacanian concepts can be applied to elucidate the often "barred" or "excluded" experiences of Asian American people. Rather than attempting to read the entirety of the text, we will focus on selected pages or passages to extract the main points through close reading.
Required Text: Écrits: The Complete Edition in English, translated by Bruce Fink. ISBN-10: 0393329259; ISBN-13: 978-0393329254
Meera Lee, PhD, LP (she/her), is a faculty member in the Asian American Studies Program at Hunter College, CUNY, and a psychoanalyst in private practice in Manhattan, New York City. In addition to her work in the fields of Asian studies and Korean cinema, she has published books and scholarly essays on Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Her most recent publication is Lacan’s Cruelty: Perversion Beyond Philosophy, Culture and Clinic (Palgrave Lacan Series, 2022), an edited collection of essays on perversion by the leading theorists and clinicians in the Lacanian orientation. Lee's forthcoming Korean translation of Jacques Lacan: The Basics (Routledge, 2024) by Calum Neil is scheduled for publication by Yeondoo Press, Korea in 2025.
She is currently completing a monograph, provisionally entitled, What is a Father? Essays on the Superego from Freud to Lacan.
Barring extenuating circumstances, participants in TAACP’s courses agree to attend all sessions, arriving on time for the entire duration of class.
As classes are online, ensure that you are in a quiet and private space that allows for both audio and video to be on.
Classes are small to encourage dialogue. We encourage you to “take” your share of talking time and listening time.
Keep other participants’ experience and clinical information confidential.
All involved with TAACP (staff, volunteers, faculty, participants, guests) are expected to interact with each other with respect.
Issues that arise will be first discussed / addressed with the immediate folks involved and can be progressed to include faculty and/or TAACP’s administration.
Unfortunately, not at this time. If you can or know of someone who can help us get approved nationwide, please email hello@taacp.org.
Course fees are split between instructors and the Center. We believe in valuing the time and work of our instructors. The fees to Center support operating costs for current and future programming. At this time, our non-teaching staff are volunteers.
Due to the size of the courses (8 participants), your presence is important so we hope that you make every effort to attend class. And, life happens.
However, there will be no recordings of sessions. We want to encourage participants to feel at ease to share personal and/or clinical material.
We want to offer a space for Asian / Asian American clinicians to be, to learn, to question, to create, and to support one another. And, from this space, our hope is that we can have more nuanced conversations and in depth explorations of the intersection of Asian subjectivities and psychoanalysis.
Our one time events are open to all. And, in the future, we might offer courses for non-Asian clinicians.
If you need to withdraw from enrollment, full refund will be given to up to a week prior to class start minus a processing fee of $50.
No refunds once classes begin or for missed classes.
In the event that the Center has to cancel a course, full refund will be provided.
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