This book presents the radically new theory of subjectivity found in the work of Jacques Lacan. Against the tide of post-structuralist thinkers who announce "the death of the subject," Bruce Fink explores what it means to come into being as a subject where impersonal forces once reigned, subjectify the alien roll of the dice at the beginning of our universe, and make our own knotted web of our parents' desires that led them to bring us into this world. Lucidly guiding readers through the labyrinth of Lacanian theory--unpacking such central notions as the Other, object a, the unconscious as structures like a language, alienation and separation, the paternal metaphor, jouissance, and sexual difference--Fink demonstrates in-depth knowledge of Lacan's theoretical and clinical work. Indeed, this is the first book to appear in English that displays a firm grasp of both theory and practice of Lacanian psychoanalysis, the author being one of the only Americans to have undergone full training with Lacan's school in Paris. Fink Leads the reader step by step into Lacan's conceptual system to explain how one comes to be a subject--leading to psychosis. Presenting Lacan's theory in the context of his clinical preoccupations, Fink provides the most balanced, sophisticated, and penetrating view of Lacan's work to date--invaluable to the initiated and the uninitiated alike.

Originally published in 1991, this volume tackles the diverse teachings of the great psychoanalyst and theoretician. Written by some of the leading American and European Lacanian scholars and practitioners, the essays attempt to come to terms with his complex relation to the culture of contemporary psychoanalysis. The volume presents useful insights into Lacan’s innovative theories on the nature of language and the subject. Many of the essays probe the importance of psychoanalysis for problems of signifier and referent in the philosophy of language; others explore the difficulties men and women have in negotiating the sexual differences that divide them. A major contribution to the new reception of Jacques Lacan in the English-speaking world, Lacan and the Subject of Language will challenge those who believe that they have already ‘mastered’ Lacanian thought. The insights offered here will pave the way for further developments.

This book examines and explores Jacques Lacan’s controversial topologisation of psychoanalysis, and seeks to persuade the reader that this enterprise was necessary and important. In providing both an introduction to a fundamental component of Lacan’s theories, as well as readings of texts that have been largely ignored, it provides a thorough critical interpretation of his work. Will Greenshields argues that Lacan achieved his most pedagogically clear and successful presentations of his most essential and notoriously complex concepts – such as structure, the subject and the real – through the deployment of topology. The book will help readers to better understand Lacan, and also those concepts that have become prevalent in various intellectual discourses such as contemporary continental philosophy, politics and the study of ideology, and literary or cultural criticism.

Application of Lacan's theory to some concrete legal problems follows in the second part of the book with a series of studies including child abuse hysteria, land use debates, the critique of legal ideology; and religion in law and politics.

After Lacan combines abundant case material with graceful yet sophisticated theoretical exposition in order to explore the clinical practice of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Focusing on the groundbreaking clinical treatment of psychosis that Gifric (Groupe Interdisciplinaire Freudien de Recherches et d'Interventions Cliniques et Culturelles) has pioneered in Quebec, the authors discuss how Lacanians theorize psychosis and how Gifric has come to treat it analytically. Chapters are devoted to the general concepts and key terms that constitute the touchstones of the early phase of analytic treatment, elaborating their interrelations and their clinical relevance. The second phase of analytic treatment is also discussed, introducing a new set of terms to understand transference and the ethical act of analysis in the subject's assumption of the Other's lack. The concluding chapters broaden discussion to include the key psychic structures that describe the organization of subjectivity and thereby dictate the terms of analysis: not just psychosis, but also perversion and obsessional and hysterical neurosis.

The French theorist Lacan has always been called a 'literary' theoretician. Here is, for the first time, a complete study of his literary analyses and examples, with an account of the importance of literature in the building of his highly original system of thought. Rabate offers a systematic genealogy of Lacan's theory of literature, reconstructing a doctrine based upon Freudian insights, and revitalised through close readings of authors as diverse as Poe, Gide, Shakespeare, Plato, Claudel, Genet, Duras and Joyce. Not simply an essay about Lacan's influences or style, this book shows how the emergence of key terms like the 'letter' and the 'symptom' would not have been possible without innovative readings of literary texts.

"Van Haute's exegesis of Lacan's essay is as lucid as it is cogent--an admirable (and very illuminating) achievement." -William Richardson