Philadelphia Lacan Study Group

Saint Agatha, by Tiepolo

Saint Agatha, by Tiepolo

The Ecstacy of St. Teresa, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

The Ecstacy of St. Teresa, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Oedipus

Oedipus explains the riddle of the Sphinx, by J. A. D. Ingres

Detail of Saint Lucy, by del Cossa

Detail of Saint Lucy, by del Cossa

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

THE ABSENT-MINDED PERFORMATIVE XI--Online Seminar

L’Etourdit (1972) is a notoriously difficult text that poses crucial questions for Lacan’s later elaborations. In an essay that foregrounds the dimension of saying and its performative power, Lacan interrogates what he calls the subjective state of dizziness (being étourdi). Tackling all the implications of “saying” in the “talking cure,” he introduces the Unconscious as “half-saying,” a saying that makes one dizzy but also willing to hear:
“I want to note that here is only a collecting together – ceaselessly fed by the testimony given to me by those whose ears I open – collecting what anyone can get from the mouth of analysands provided at least that they are authorized to assume the place of the analyst.”
Here, the collecting process (recueil) also becomes a welcoming process (accueil). What can we learn about authority, truth, analytic training, sexual difference, and the Real from a reading of L’Etourdit?

The reading seminars are an open forum for the discussion of psychoanalysis. Curated by Patricia Gherovici. Seminars are free and open to all. QUESTIONS? Email: contact@lacangroup.org.
WHEN? Wednesday September 28, 2022. 7-8:30 pm EST via Zoom