2024–25 calendar of events
Note: All times are Eastern Time Zone
The Name-of-the-Father and the Cause-of-Desire — Paula Hochman
The Name-of-the-Father articulates the structure that gives rise to the subject, formed by the Real, the Symbolic, and the Imaginary. According to Lacan, the Father acquires respectability and authority by binding his name to a desire-causing object. We will therefore examine the intrinsic relation between the law and desire.
Coming from Matter: On Artaud’s Recreation of the World — Raffaella Colombo
Ever since Deleuze and Guattari brought attention to it, Artaud’s concept of a “body without organs” (from his 1947 play To Have Done with the Judgment of God ) has been overused as a metaphor for individual and collective rebellion. Yet many other lessons remain in his “absolute materialism” and the painful, powerfully revolutionary conflict he waged with the pervasive presence of matter — from physical objects to the soul, thoughts, and even God.
The Phantasm, between Desire and Jouissance — Alain Vanier
The phantasm responds to the question of the Other's desire, and thus the subject’s desire, by articulating subject and object, signifier and jouissance. It is a screen to the Real, and therefore crucially at stake at the end of the treatment, opening onto another mode of jouissance. Suggested readings
Freudian vs. Aristotelean Logic — André Michels
To determine the position of psychoanalysis in relation to modern science, it is crucial to return to the logic at stake in Freud’s invention, most clearly exposed in his writings on dreams, wit, and slips of the tongue. Lacan’s return to Freud continually examined psychoanalysis as a logical procedure undermining the principle of contradiction (or non-contradiction) expounded by Aristotle. Focusing on the signifier, the phantasm, and the Borromean knot, we will contrast psychoanalytic logic with the psychologism implicit in the social and political sciences that pervades almost all aspects of modern life.
Observing the Voices — Daniel Heller-Roazen
In his dialogue On Divination, Cicero writes that the Pythagoreans cultivated the practice of “observing voices”: “not only the voices of the gods but also those of men, which they named ‘omens.’” Building on discussions at Après-Coup in 2022 and 2023, this presentation will explore the conditions in which sudden speech events have become objects of attention in ritual, literature, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis, yielding insights into omens, slips, and epiphanies.
Where Do the Unconscious and Politics Meet?—Gisèle Chaboudez
Lacan countered the long-disputed biologism of Freud’s “anatomy is destiny” with “the unconscious is politics.” Yet he never separated what the unconscious elaborates from real bodies, for instance of sexual organs in their copulation, with regard to their defective sexual jouissance. Noting that what is called the sexual relation, le rapport sexuel, precisely is not one, and that something else has been substituted in it, something he termed plus de jouir, we can surmise that it’s there that politics begins.
Dates to be announced
Psychoanalysis in the Institution — Ona Nierenberg
This clinical group will be oriented to the unique challenges and opportunities we encounter in hospitals, clinics, prisons, treatment programs, schools, and other institutions. We will explore the often surprising possibilities the analyst has to create and sustain space for the singular even in settings dominated by claims to the universal. Open to those currently working clinically in or with institutions.
On the One and the Pas-Tout: The Analytic Act — Paola Mieli
Pursuing our reflections on the relations between the subject and the collective, and the discourses that organize them, we will focus on the function of the One and the logic of the pas-tout in the analytic discourse. In light of the uniqueness of each analytic act, we will address the relation between universal, particular, and singular in the analytic field, as well as the logical times that mark the unfolding of the treatment and the end of an analysis.
All and Not-All (Part III)
Après-Coup Presentations. Date and time to be announced. Registration details to follow. This event will be free and open to the public.