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How to read Lacan
Abstract
Whenever the membranes of the egg in which the foetus emerges on its way to becoming a new-born are broken, imagine for a moment that something flies off, and that one can do it with an egg as easily as with a man, namely the hommelette, or the lamella. The lamella is something extra-flat, which moves like the amoeba. It is just a little more complicated. But it goes everywhere. And as it is something - I will tell you shortly why - that is related to what the sexed being loses in sexuality, it is, like the amoeba in relation to sexed beings, immortal - because it survives any division, and scissiparous intervention. And it can turn around. Well! This is not very reassuring. But suppose it comes and envelopes your face while you are quietly asleep... I can't see how we would not join battle with a being capable of these properties. But it would not be a very convenient battle. This lamella, this organ, whose characteristic is not to exist, but which is nevertheless an organ - I can give you more details as to its zoological place - is the libido. It is the libido, qua pure life instinct, that is to say, immortal life, irrepressible life, life that has need of no organ, simplified, indestructible life. It is precisely what is subtracted from the living being by virtue of the fact that it is subject to the cycle of sexed reproduction. And it is of this that all the forms of the objet a that can be enumerated are the representatives, the equivalents. Every word has a weight here, in this deceivingly poetic description of the mythic creature called by Lacan "lamella" (which can vaguely be translated as "manlet," a condensation of "man" and "omelet"). Lacan imagines lamella as a version of what Freud called "partial object": a weird organ which is magically autonomized, surviving without a body whose organ it should have been, like a hand that wonders around alone in early Surrealist films, or like the smile in Alice in Wonderland that persists alone, even when the Cheshire cat's body is no longer present: "'All right', said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. 'Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin', thought Alice; 'but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!'" The lamella is an entity of pure surface, without the density of a substance, an infinitely plastic object that can not only incessantly change its form, but can even transpose itself from one to another medium: imagine a "something" that is first heard as a shrilling sound, and then pops up as a monstrously distorted body. A lamella is indivisible, indestructible, and immortal - more precisely, undead in the sense this term has in horror fiction: not the sublime spiritual immortality, but the obscene immortality of the "living dead" which, after every annihilation, re-composes themselves and clumsily goes on. As Lacan puts it in his terms, lamella does not exist, it insists: it is unreal, an entity of pure semblance, a multiplicity of appearances which seem to envelop a central void - its status is purely fantasmatic. This blind indestructible insistence of the libido is what Freud called "death drive," and one should bear in mind that "death drive" is, paradoxically, the Freudian name for its very opposite, for the way immortality appears within psychoanalysis: for an uncanny excess of life, for an "undead" urge which persist beyond the (biological) cycle of life and death, of generation and corruption. This is why Freud equates death drive with the so-called "compulsion-to-repeat," an uncanny urge to repeat painful past experiences which seems to outgrow the natural limitations of the organism affected by it and to insist even beyond the organism's death - again, like the living dead in a horror film who just go on. This excess inscribes itself into the human body in the guise of a wound which makes the subject "undead," depriving him of the capacity to die (like the wound on the ill boy's stomach from Kafka's "A Country Doctor"): when this wound is healed, the hero can die in peace.
... It is in Lacan's ideas of alienation from the biological child that we may find motivation for the nature tourist who looks to the wilderness with the hope of alleviating her alienation and reconciling her split subjectivity. As will be discussed later, this hope of reconciliation/wholeness finds expression in engagement with fantasy, reality, and enjoyment of Lacan's real (see Zizek, 2006Zizek, , 2008). ...
... The mirror stage is the first in a baby's process of becoming a subject, of developing her own identity; it precedes acquisition of language through which identification with society (the big Other or "Other") takes place and, for Lacan, is the initial phase of a subject's development (Bailly, 2009;Zizek, 2006). It is in the mirror stage that the child first develops the ability to recognize and intellectualize images and to separate the image of herself from her physical form. ...
... In order for a child to be a successfully functioning social (split) subject, she must avoid the Oedipal implications of desiring the Mother (and the Mother's desires) and shift her own desires to those of the Other, society (Feldstein et al., 1995;Fink, 1995;Lacan, [1964Lacan, [ ] 1995Lacan, [ , 1979. While they differ in their engagements with discourse (Bailly, 2009;Knudsen et al., 2016) and desire (Fink, 1995;Zizek, 2008), many Lacanian scholars agree that separation involves a subject's recognition and acceptance of lack in the Other (see Fink, 1995;Homer, 2005;Kingsbury, 2011;Zizek, 2006). Zizek (2008) contends, "… the Other itself 'hasn't got it', hasn't got the final answer … is in itself blocked, desiring; that there is also a desire of the Other" (p. ...
Focusing on the role psychoanalytic alienation plays in tourist motivation, this article contributes to recent scholarship that aims to redevelop the dialectic relationship between authenticity and alienation in tourism studies. Lacanian psychoanalysis is the primary lens through which this is accomplished, by application to wilderness and nature tourism in the Adirondacks of Upstate New York, USA. This approach adds further insight as to the draw of nature tourism by interrogating not only what nature tourists are seeking but also what drives them to seek it. As such, this attention to the dialectical relationship of authenticity and alienation has implications for theories of tourism that seek to understand the relationship of tourism motivation to touristic experience.
... The world of happiness has become a world of needsatisfaction governed by an "eternal now". Several authors have observed the radical transformation to earlier moralizing super-ego structures, that prohibited excessive enjoyment, to today's "duties" to do whatever one feels like, and just be happy (Zizek, 2006;Cederström & Spicer, 2015). ...
In this paper, I seek to revitalize the concept of happiness by conceptualizing it as a relational and instantaneous phenomenon with both existential, ethical and political dimensions. Happiness hap-ens – in and through encounters, and it does so when we least expect it. Drawing on Bachelard’s writings on ‘the instant’, as well as Gumbrecht’s and Rosa’s much related concepts of ‘presence’ and ‘resonance’, I attempt to formulate a more relational and nonvolitional counter-concept of happiness that blurs the border between eudemonic happiness and subjective well-being on the one hand and positive affect on the other. Safe-guarding opportunities for these moments to happen is to be seen as vital in a contemporary society governed by individualization, rationalization and hedonistic principles. Even though one cannot choose to be happy, one can indeed lead a good life; colored by an openness towards the other and what might come.
... I characterize this transformation of television as the rise of interpassivity. Among cultural and media studies scholars such as Robert Pfaller (2017) and Slavoj Žižek (2006), the idea of interpassivity is now used as an important concept to explain contemporary cultural behavior. Interpassive practices are, according to Pfaller, "grounded in the preference of particular subjects for delegating their enjoyment rather than having it themselves" (2017: 1). ...
This article considers the way in which a new nationalism is being created in the age of the Internet and social media by looking at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and other Games in the past. The development of media technology from film, radio, and television to the Internet and social media has changed the character of the Olympic Games as media event. It has been argued that these developments have created a shared consciousness, a sense of belonging and enthusiastic nationalism in the age of modern nation‐state. While the spread of the Internet and social media was originally expected to contribute to globalization or to the emergence of global citizens in a global village, as McLuhan once predicted, it seems that the world is more divided, fragmented, and fluid than ever. At the same time, the digital media organize various layers of community not only by ideology but also by affect: affective communities. This often leads to the rise of chauvinistic nationalism in developed countries. With reference to McLuhan's famous argument on hot and cool media, the article tries to examine the character of contemporary lukewarm nationalism in the age of digital media.
... According to Lacan (2007), our reality is constituted by three intertwined levels or orders; the symbolic, the imaginary, and the Real. Zizek (2006) illustrated how these orders work like the game of chess. The rules we have to follow in order to play are related to the symbolic level. ...
A basic premise of teacher education is the value of teacher agency, that is, the teacher's capacity to take responsibility for one's knowledge, beliefs, judgements, and relationships. How can teacher educators sustain a commitment to agency in light of critiques of western modernity, specifically in relation to the existence of a rational autonomous subject, the erasure of history, and the opacity of language? Drawing on existentialism, ethics, and psychoanalysis, we discuss three practicum vignettes to illustrate what we are calling "the chiastic complex-ity" of agency within the field of teacher education. We argue that admission of the limits of teacher agency may be the source of ethical insight, educational opportunity, and political resistance for student teachers and teacher educators.
... Finally, Real is the entire complex set of contingent circumstances that affect the course of the game: the intelligence of the players, the unpredictable intrusions that may disconcert one player or directly cut the game short. 88 The Imaginary ...
This is a Pre-Print for the Oxford Resource Encyclopedia entry entitled "Psychoanalysis and Critical/Cultural Studies"
... The self is constantly shifting and will never be fully realised. (Lacan 1977;Brown and England 2005;Zizek 2006;Brown 2016) The lack of self-identity should be seen as enjoyable, in the sense that it allows us to experience control and power in attempting to frame an identity (Lacan 1988;Driver 2009). The inability to define oneself, a lack of identity, can be creative and empowering for the individual: space to negotiate self-perception to try and establish identity (Lacan 1988;Driver 2009). ...
This paper will provide insight into the reflective practice that a professional doctorate (EdD) encourages, and how such reflection can affect the professional practice of professional services staff. It concludes with my reflections on how undertaking an EdD has been beneficial, and the self-awareness that I have achieved both from the programme and also from self-realisation.
How do far-left violent extremists impose the emotions of shame and guilt onto their selected targets? How does the construction of a “deserved” victimhood by terrorists become plausible and how has the victim/perpetrator status reversal survived for decades at societal level? This chapter introduces an advanced theoretical model based on Gilligan’s shame/violence theory, aiming, firstly, to examine the shame/guilt relationship between far-left violent extremists and their selected victims; secondly, to evaluate the shame/guilt relationship between far-left violent extremists and the families of their selected targets. The paper highlights the aforementioned causal relations through a case study: the assassination of the Greek journalist and Member of Parliament, Pavlos Bakoyiannis, by the far-left terrorist group “Revolutionary Organisation 17 November” in 1989. In the years that followed, the shameful accusations and violent threats against Bakoyannis’ family, by a small group of violent extremists, reversed reality and portrayed the victim as perpetrator, in order to justify their murderous means. Is this victim/perpetrator status reversal tolerated and/or justified by society? What are the lessons learned at societal level?
Starting from the distinction between “ideal ego”, “ego-ideal” and “superego” structured from the Imaginary-Symbolic-Real triad made by Lacan, this study investigates how is possible to distinguish the a-sexual social space from the domain of libidinally-cathexed interactions. Through the analysis of Balibar’s, Miller’s, Schuster’s and Hägglund’s ideas, paths and strategies are defined to analyze the existing dynamics between symbolic power, law and superego. What emerges is the reconstruction of a new subjectivity which is capable, at the same time, to overcome the jouissance-superego dynamic at the basis of Lacanian reflection and face the challenges of contemporary post-humanism. Therefore, what subject stands for is the inhuman core of being-human, what Hegel called selfrelating negativity, what Freud called death drive. The text proposes, in short, how the Subject is what is in a human being more than human, the immortality of the deathdrive which makes it a living dead, something that insists beyond the cycle of life and death.
This manuscript presents a reflection on the work of Cooper (1992). It is set within the context of the very urgent need to address global warming before we hit the irreversible “tipping point”. Cooper’s (1992) theoretical perspective is discussed alongside the political milieu within which it was written. The manuscript then turns to the work of Wendy Brown (1995) to formulate a critique and expand our understanding of Cooper’s (1992) work. Brown (1995) analyses experiences of women under capitalism, reminding us of the importance of understanding that capitalism is overlaid by gender and vice versa. The perspectives of Brown (1995) and Cooper (1992) are then combined to discuss one of the latest environmental accounting initiatives, the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The paper concludes that so many years and reporting initiatives after Cooper (1992), we still have not emancipated from the masculine symbolic order in accounting (or more generally).
By comparing psychoanalytic transformational processes to political revolutions, the author advances the psychoanalytic project in several ways. The analogy extends British object relations theory by elaborating upon Fairbairn's (1952) observation that psychoanalysts arduously compete with their patients' devotions to their internal worlds. In essence, he argues, and by exploiting the ‘mutual but asymmetrical’ (Aron, 1991) intimacy of the psychoanalytic dyad, psychoanalysts foment change in individuals like revolutionaries alter governments. The comparison to political revolutions also highlights how changes in the behaviour of other persons in patients' lives are necessary for transformation. Clinical insurgencies, when successful, alter patients' intra-psychic structures, interpersonal relationships, and overall behavioural patterns. The paper includes two case examples, one a successful revolution and the other not, as illustrations.
Perhaps one of the most celebrated artists of all time and responsible for ushering in a new style of art during the Baroque period, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio continues to emerge from the pages of history and captivate art historians and art lovers alike. He has been the focus of countless scholars and art critics since his emergence as an artist in 16th century Rome. This research will provide a fresh analysis of two of the artist's verified self-portraits, The Young Sick Bacchus c. 1593 and David with the Head of Goliath c. 1610, using Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. By doing this, this research aims to present the possibility that by the end of his life, Caravaggio was concerned with issues of forgiveness as he waited for a papal pardon. One of his last works, David with the Head of Goliath, circa 1610, provides a clue that supports this idea, which will be examined later in this paper. Thus, arguing that while Caravaggio certainly had a flair for drama in both his work and personal life, he also strove to correct his behavior – or at the very least, was remorseful and desired absolution for his sins.
In this study, we address the issue of mathematics teachers' personal and professional responsiveness to changing circumstances, such as the shift in external demands made on teacher practice due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For investigating a such delicate issue, we take a theoretical approach, which is quite novel in the field of mathematics education: Lacan's psychoanalytical lens. Specifically, we will use this psychoanalytical lens to analyze a case study focusing on a primary school teacher during the first lockdown in Italy, during which school was organized exclusively in the form of distance education. The analysis of the teacher’s crisis and the strategies she adopted to overcome this crisis give some suggestions about possible directions and issues to consider for future mathematics teacher training proposals.
In my research, I have attempted to map the construction economy as a site of informal labour deeply intertwined with the formal economy.
Further, I have examined the role of informal economy in Hyderabad's IT District: Cyberabad. This was done through the lens of construction workers, in Kondapur and across three labour addas of Hyderabad- Vijaynagar Colony, Tolichowki & Peddama Gudi.
Taking forward Kalyan Sanyal's category of the need economy, the impetus was twofold:
1. To see how prominent informal construction labourers were in the creation of global city-spaces, catering to global capital (Smart Cities, IT Districts,etc.), thus revealing the hidden but crucial role of the informal economy in formal accumulation channels.
2. As per Sanyal's formulation of a fluid space outside lying outside the gates of capital (need economy), I have attempted to map out this space, its dynamics, and how it lies as an 'other' to capital, populated entirely by those tasked with building the spaces of capital, yet excluded from its machinations
This paper's task is to outline some foundations of a critical, Marxist‐humanist theory of communication in the age of digital capitalism. It theorises the role of communication in society, communication and alienation, communication in social struggles, social struggles for democratic communication, the contradictions of digital capitalism, and struggles for digital socialist humanism.
Marxist humanism is a counter‐narrative, counter‐theory, and counter‐politics to neoliberalism, new authoritarianism, and postmodernism. A critical theory of communication can should draw on this intellectual tradition. Communication and work stand in a dialectical relationship. Communication mediates, organises and is the process of the production of sociality and therefore of the reproduction of society. Society and communication are in class and capitalist societies shaped by the antagonism between instrumental and co‐operative reason. Authoritarianism and humanism are two basic, antagonistic modes of organisation of society and communication. Instrumental reason creates and universalises alienation.
Digital capitalism is a dimension of contemporary society where digital technologies such as the computer, the Internet, the mobile phone, tablets, robots, and AI‐driven (“smart”) technologies mediate the accumulation of capital, influence, and reputation. A Marxist‐humanist theory of communication aims to inform struggles for a good, commons‐based, public Internet in a good, commons‐based society that has a vivid, democratic public sphere.
Psychoanalysis has produced an ensemble of institutions, expertise, procedures, and practices for rendering the psychoanalytic subject legible and, through this, psychic life as an actionable site of intervention, dislocation, and struggle. This article examines how diverse psychoanalytic communities in Buenos Aires have produced unique grammars that influence how individuals articulate ideas about health and well‐being. Descriptive, culturally specific, historically informed, and always provisional, this grammar is empirically grounded in lived experience. Through presenting several case studies, I flesh out how this grammar, as a deictic expression of/for the unconscious is deployed, reworked, and embodied in everyday interactions. I demonstrate how psychic life is enmeshed within social and political experience. In doing so, I consider how interpersonal, existential, environmental, social, and political contingencies shape divergent notions of well‐being and structure desires of what it means to live “a good life.”
El Athletic Club de Bilbao tiene una filosofía única: ficha solamente a jugadores que son vascos, una política que rechaza el internacionalismo del fútbol contemporáneo globalizado. A pesar de esta filosofía, el club nunca ha bajado a segunda división. Sin embargo, en 2007 el Athletic estuvo a solo un partido de bajar a segunda división, lo que obligó a su comunidad de seguidores a enfrentarse al impasse de su identificación localista. Su excepcionalismo altivo, la filosofía que hizo que el club bilbaíno se considerara “un caso único en el mundo”, parecía ahora estar en conflicto con las exigencias de calidad necesarias para pertenecer a la primera división, y la identidad misma de la ciudad parecía estar en juego. Apoyado en una investigación etnográfica, este artículo indaga en la identidad colectiva como una trampa-22, un doble vínculo según la teorización de Bateson: una situación que presenta una elección inevitable entre dos resultados irreconciliables y no deseados, un dilema vital que desvela no solo los placeres sino también el sufrimiento de identidad producido por el fútbol en la sociedad vasca.
Modern Western society holds a perspective on death as being the opposite to life in an attempt to separate and exclude it from life, and thereby control it by overwriting it with knowledge and science. In contradistinction to this view, the current project explores the notion of death from the standpoint of Lacan’s conceptualisation of a subject, a subject in opposition to the Cartesian conception dominating modern subjectivity. Lacan’s theoretical framework offers a rich, in-depth account of the notion of death as it is structured through language. More precisely, human experiences are structured through the intertwining of the three registers constitutive of reality and subjectivity: the imaginary, the symbolic and the real. It is thus the main purpose of this project to trace the construction of death as it happens through the interaction of these three registers. Three volunteers participated in this study who wrote down two life-changing events. The guidelines stemming from the framework of a Lacanian Discourse Analysis (LDA) were applied to the narratives as a method for analysis. The analysis of these narratives revealed that the interaction of the three registers determines the position death gains in reality, that is, what sense it is given, which subsequently influences the experience of anxiety. The revealed relationships to death further elucidate three points. Firstly, as meaning and language are introduced in life, life and death become inextricably bound to each other. Secondly, as long as a symbol acts as a mediator between a subject and death, making sense of death becomes an impossibility; any attempt to put death into reason, finite knowledge or generalisations fails. Finally, death as standing both inside and outside our constructed reality sheds light on a necessary relationship to death that moulds an impossible, interdependent subject.
The approach of an education for innovativeness aims to enable pupils to participate in shaping societies in a mature manner, which includes the appropriation and designing of spaces. This approach is useful for educational and practical concepts such as Spatial Citizenship, which promotes the use of digital geomedia for individual and collective appropriation and reshaping of spaces. However, encouraging innovativeness may also seem to foster participation in questionable inventing processes with trivial-or even harmful-intentions. Including an ethical meta level in the model design for innovativeness would generate reflection on the purpose of the novelty. In this paper, we look first at theories that address the term 'problem', social innovations and applied ethics, in order then to develop a first attempt at creating an ethical meta level in the model design for innovativeness.
It is the concern of this paper to present three important associations that indicate the coupling of trauma and abyss for Žižek’s idea of Überwindung or overcoming. Its fundamental function, following Nietzsche, is to posit a radical or paradoxical task of thinking. It should be noted that the understanding of these associations works not entirely the same as parallels of one grand constitution in the end. Rather, the associations are routes, short-circuits, and therefore merely entry-exit points with necessarily no connection from the start but may start to assemble themselves afterward to retroactively energize the paradox of thinking. The three association points are the following: first and foremost, on the unclear pathway relationship of trauma and abyss from sporadic vantage points; second, on matters of belief and Žižek’s own critique of morality; and lastly, the constitution of freedom which is an essential element of overcoming.
This paper aims to study the process of identity shaping of a teenager in a family from the perspective of Subjectivity theories. The process of identity formation has been one of the main concerns for various critical approaches in human sciences in general, and the psychoanalytical and Marxist approaches in particular. The case study of the present research is the character of Alyosha from Andrey Zvyagintsev's film, Loveless (2017). Since there is no particular theory for the contentual analysis of Film, critics in the analysis of the films' content, take advantage of various literary, sociological and psychoanalysis theories. Therefore, the Conceptual Framework of the present study concentrates on the critical approaches of Structural psychoanalysis and Structural Marxism; particularly definitions of the Unconscious, Repressed Desire, the Name of the Father by Lacan, the Ideology, ISAs, RSAs by Althusser, and the Žižekian concept of Lack of Language. This investigation in the process of identity formation can play a significant role in demonstrating the covert motives of the character's suicidal act. It will illustrate the way Alyosha as a subject inherits his parents' repressed desires and lack of language caused by ideology. The application of considering concepts indicates the central role and inevitable impact of the familial discourse at the emergence of subjectivity within the family.
The foremost Post-Freudian Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) has established a significant practice of psychoanalysis on the basis of unconscious and language. This model of Psychoanalysis on the basis of structural linguistics has been utilized by Lacan himself in criticizing a work of literature as well as formulating a theory of unconscious through literary expressions. In this model of Lacanian psychoanalysis where the theory of unconscious and the theory of literature defining each other establishes a Post-Freudian model of psychoanalytic criticism. This model which further interrogates into the literary text through the language in order to examine the unconscious of both the writer and the reader is made possible. The present essay considers outlining the Lacanian model of literary criticism.
Sara Goldfarb and her son Harry, two central characters in Hubert Selby Jr.’s Requiem for a Dream, are both addicts. The objects of their desire, a television set and a bag of drugs, are of particular signifi cance because they cannot be enjoyed without a transmitter – an antenna and a syringe. The article presents these objects as incomplete and the desire attached to them as misplaced. What the characters are really looking for is something beyond, “a pound of pure” happiness. The world in Requiem for a Dream is purely physical, so only what is done to the body can be felt and understood by the characters. In the end, Sara and Harry both become incomplete like the objects they are pursuing.
This paper proposes a specific approach to understanding the nature of technology that encompasses the entire field of technological praxis, from the making of primitive tools to using the Internet. In that approach, technology is a specific form of human agency that yields to (an imperfect) realization of human control over a technological situation—that is, a situation not governed to an end by natural constraints but by specific human aims. The components of such technological situations are a given collection of natural or artificial beings, humans, human aims, and situation-bound tools. By performing technological situation analysis, the essential form of tool making, the complex system of relationships between science and technology, technological practices with and without machines, the finiteness or imperfectness of any technology, and engineering (i.e., the possibility of the creation of technological situations) can be considered. For a better characterization of the approach to technology, the paper also presents a comparison of other philosophies of technology. Following Feenberg’s comparative analysis, the so-called fundamental question of the philosophy of technology is formulated, its two sides are identified, and it is applied for clarification of our position within philosophy of technology. In our approach, all human praxis can be considered to be technological; more precisely, every human activity has a technological aspect or dimension
The introduction to the special issue taps into discussions about the inseparability of science and fiction. Commencing from the idea that scientific statements are distinguished from fiction only a posteriori, not a priori, the piece asks, how fiction could be used as a theoretical resource in social scientific thinking. Could it inform, enrich, extend, intensify, and challenge the sociological imagination? Besides rejecting any clear-cut separation of social science and fictional and artistic forms, the text seeks to unsettle our certainty as to what counts as “fact” and what as “fiction” in the first place. It also suggests that examining the relationship of sociology and fictional and artistic forms helps us unsettle the institutionalized disciplinary ways of ordering knowledge and thought and that there may be a poetics or fiction to be uncovered in sociological scholarship, as sociology is also a form of storytelling.
Through research that was conducted with mountain bike trail builders, this article explores the processes by which socio-natures or ‘emergent ecologies’ are formed through the assemblage of trail building, mountain bike riding and matter. In moving conversations about ‘Nature’ beyond essentialist readings and dualistic thinking, we consider how ecological sensibilities are reflected in the complex, lived realities of the trail building community. Specifically, we draw on Morton’s (2017) notion of the ‘symbiotic real’ to examine how participants connect with a range of objects and non-humans, revealing a ‘spectral’ existence in which they take pleasure in building material features that are only partially of their creation. Such ‘tuning’ to the symbiotic real was manifest in the ongoing battle that the trail builders maintained with water. This battle not only emphasized the fragility of their trail construction but also the temporal significance of the environments that these creations were rendered in/with. In conclusion, we argue that these findings present an ecological awareness that views nature as neither static, inert or fixed, but instead, as a temporal ‘nowness’, formed from the ambiguity of being in and with nature. Ecologically, this provides a unique form of orientation that re-establishes the ambiguity between humans and nature, without privileging the former. It is set against this ecological (un)awareness that we believe a re-orientation can be made to our understandings of leisure, the Anthropocene and the nature-culture dyad.
In this essay, we trace the symbolic conundrums of belonging and of the reconciliation of identities, in the context of Catalan and Scottish sport and politics. Our discussion will commence with a necessarily concise consideration of past academic contentions regarding the national “psyches,” which have been argued to shape contemporary notions of identity and politics in Catalonia and Scotland, before turning our attention to the specific role of sport vis‐à‐vis these psyches and the growing clamour for greater political autonomy for each of these stateless nations. On the basis of the evidence drawn from the interaction between sport and politics in the two nations, we argue that secessionism is a liminal field of transformation as it includes what is seen as mutually exclusive sets of relationships (Catalans vs. Spaniards, Scottish vs. British, and secessionists vs. unionists/centralists), which at the same time allows subjects to pass from one state to another and occupy them nonexclusively.
The article is devoted to the investigation of the due process of the International Accounting Standards Board to identify the means of influence of the national interested parties on the global publishers of standards, and to build a similar system of accounting regulation in Ukraine. The stages of the due process of the International Accounting Standards Board are revealed in the context of mandatory procedures and the procedures of type ‘comply or explain’. It is found that the main instrument of influence of the national interested parties is a comment letters to documents and projects for discussion. It is found that the due process of the IASB observes all the four prerequisites of a ‘wise crowd’: 1) diversity of opinions; 2) independence; 3) decentralization; 4) aggregation of opinions. The necessity of active participation of national accountants in the creation of global standards by sending comment letters is emphasized. The advantages of the egalitarian approach to the regulation of accounting are substantiated. Keywords: International Accounting Standards Board, due process, accounting regulation, comment letters, national regulation of accounting.
The Trypillia megasites of Ukraine are the largest known settlements in 4th millennium BC Europe and possibly the world. With the largest reaching 320 ha in size, megasites pose a serious question about the origins of such massive agglomerations. Most current solutions assume maximum occupation, with all houses occupied at the same time, and target defence against other agglomerations as the cause of their formation. However, recent alternative views of megasites posit smaller long-term occupations or seasonal assembly places, creating a settlement rather than military perspective on origins. Shukurov et al. (2015)'s model of Trypillia arable land-use demonstrates that subsistence stresses begin when site size exceeded 35 ha. Over half of the sites dated to the Trypillia BI stage-the stage before the first megasites-were larger than 35 ha, suggesting that some form of buffering involving exchange of goods for food was in operation. There were two settlement responses to buffering:-clustering of sites with enhanced inter-site exchange networks and the creation of megasites. The trend to increased site clustering can be seen from Phase BI to CI, coeval with the emergence of megasites. We can therefore re-focus the issue of origins on why create megasites in site clusters. In this article, we discuss the two strategies in terms of informal network analysis and suggest reasons why, in some cases, megasites developed in certain site clusters. Finally, we consider the question of whether Trypillia megasites can be considered as "cities."
« What you aspire to as revolucionaries is a master. You will get one ». Lacan’s bitter prediction adressed to the students of Vincennes remains in our memory of May 68 as an emblematic sentence meaning a missed encounter between psychoanalysis and revolution. This paper argues that the Lacanian’s theory of four discourses leads to a reconceptualization of political action which hurts the utopian slogan of « unfettered enjoyment » claimed by students. At the heart of this misunderstanding is the university: on the students side, the pun « unis-vers-Cythère » points out the transfiguration of the university into a mythical place of sexual liberation; on Lacan’s side, the discourse of the university formalises the new face of capitalism without borders, backed by knowledge in the dominant position of all-knowledge. At stake is the political dimension of psychoanalysis.
In this article, I set out different relationships between planning theory, research and practice, drawing on Lacan's "production of four discourses". I argue that each element of the planning theory-research-practice 'triad' acts as the discursive 'agent' and gives rise to particular kinds of 'subject-planner' (the 'master', the 'expert', the 'idealistic' and the 'pragmatic') with specific ideological upshots ('hidden' big other, 'feigned' big other, hysteria and subjective destitution). Primarily a theoretical discussion, the article is also partially underpinned by my own practical experience in planning. While Lacanian psychoanalytical theory has already entered the planning field, its deployment has been mostly centred on deconstructing both planning decision-making processes and the mediation of planners in creating and implementing plans. Hence, the attempt here is to look in more depth at the 'ambivalent' role of the planner as well as to bring in 'planning research', as a key, somewhat occluded, element within the discussion on bridging planning theory and practice. Further, in the literature there seems to be a sort of omnipresent assumption that 'valid' reflection on planning can only come from the 'outside', which in turn perpetuates the role of the academic researcher simply trying to decode and analyse what the practitioner does (or tries to do). Critical impressions from those 'out there', 'on the job', are still missing. They, far from mere anecdotic accounts, ought to comprise self-inflicted criticism triggered by a sense of discomfort with what's being done – by the hysterical question of "why am I a planner?" and "why I am doing this or that?"
This article proposes a posthumanist reading of knowledge in Zhuangzi and Jacques Lacan from four interconnected aspects. First, knowledge is inseparable from practice, as is exemplified in Lacan’s original rewriting of Zhuangzi’s ‘agreement between name and actuality’ as the dialectic relationship between Other and other. Then, knowledge leads us to explore the mysterious knowledge behind the surface, which resists linguistic expression and defies human agency. Furthermore, the importance of the mysterious knowledge compels us to figure out the accesses to reach this unknown territory. Finally, the availability of the opaque knowledge, in a circular form, returns to the beginning question albeit on a more advanced level: the methods of putting the unknown knowledge into practice. Apart from these four logical aspects, the new perspective of posthumanism enables us to go beyond anthropocentric understanding of knowledge and bracket it within a broad framework of cross-species becoming.
In my recent book on Fredric Jameson, I averred that while Jameson and Žižek seem to be ideologically aligned, a misperception suggested or affirmed by their frequent citation of each other’s work, these citations were, I argued, a screen that obfuscates more profound differences (Burnham 2016: 10-11). But what are those differences? I propose here to lay some stress on what I take to be some important differences between those two projects, in terms of their attitudes towards the dialectic (that is to say, the impossibility of reconciling those antagonisms, but also the importance of that non-reconciliation). Grounding that dialectic via the vicissitudes of the Lacanian “non-relation,” I then turn to the question of historicism or historicity, articulated via contrasting readings of Jeff Wall’s 1994 photograph Untangling that allegorize via the pictorial not so much mark making (as Walter Benn Michaels would have it) but looking as labor – the labor of the clinic with or without the labor of the workshop.
While the question in the title can be considered from the perspectives of both members and staff, if a staff team is able to explore their own motivation and thinking in respect of their practice, the conference may develop as a fruitful learning experience for all involved. The article first considers responses by practitioners to a survey, and then explores the question itself through the work of several psychoanalytic writers concerning desire, seduction and abjection. The vicissitudes of sexuality impact on the dynamics of the conference which will be experienced in both maternal and paternal guises, and the article proposes that, in addition to listening to the transference-countertransference linking conference members and staff, the latter need to consider their own desire and attend to the transference that they themselves exercise towards their own Conference-in-the-Mind as a fantasmatic third.
This paper critically examines psycho-ideological significance of Dorian Gray, on Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Although Wilde’s novel has mostly been read as an aesthetic work of ‘Art for Art’s Sake’, the present research intends to criticize Wilde’s only novel using Žižek’s theories on subjectivity, ideology, and trauma. The brainchild of an indisputable giant literary tradition, The Picture of Dorian Gray is a tactfully designed puzzle that called the Victorian establishment into question. The thick texture of the novel, I argue, lends itself to Žižekian ideological and psychoanalytical theories wherein one can obtain a novel perspective on the issue of subjectivity. The Slovenian philosopher, Slovaj Žižek (b.1949) argues that the subject is divided and always in a transitional process until his death; Dorian is an epitome of such a subjectivity always already in transition.
Touted as the world's most popular touring exhibition, Body Worlds, the display of “plastinated” human corpses, has been viewed by over 40 million people worldwide. This article builds on existing scholarship of the phenomenon, with an analysis of the exhibition “Body Worlds & The Cycle of Life”, displayed in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2014. It situates Body Worlds as a global consumer product, considering its unchanged appearance within southern contexts, as well as issues of access and health communication in South Africa specifically. The article revisits many of the critiques that were levelled against the original exhibition in order to show the strategies that have been developed to forestall these, arguing that such strategies discursively mask its primary investment in spectacle. The paper considers the ways—aesthetic, identificatory, and ethical—in which Body Worlds operates and argues that these invite particular forms of pleasure that bypass the possible discomfort attendant upon looking at dead bodies. I use a range of sources, from the writings of the exhibition's creator to critical responses, popular reviews, viewer feedback, and autoethnography, to think through Body Worlds’ strategies for making the viewing of a corpse a pleasurable experience.
The Antikythera Wreck is one of the most famous archaeological ensembles in the history of maritime archaeology. For more than a hundred years, since its discovery in 1900, it has played an important role in the development of the discipline, not only in Greece, but also at an international level. Especially in Greece the impact was - and still is – remarkable. In this case study I will struggle to analyze the social aspect of this impact in the time of the discovery. In order to do that though, instead of just looking for a cause and an effect, I will try to decompose the phenomenon to its primal factors and I look in between for inter-“actions” and hidden connections.
This paper examines the tensions between education policy's attachment to notions such as excellence and inclusion and its investments in managerial tropes of competition, continuous quality improvement, standards and accountability that are at odds with and which undermine its attachments. In order to explore these tensions, I draw on the psychoanalytic notion of fantasy, explained through Stanley Kubrick's final film, Eyes wide shut. My argument is that while the individual and society are both constituted through unavoidable division, antagonism and opacity, these notions are obscured through the operations of fantasy which holds out the promise of wholeness, harmony and redemp-tion. In particular, education serves as a key site in which these fantasmatic ideals are promoted and pursued, a claim I substantiate via an analysis of the UK government's 2016 White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere. Specifically, I read the White Paper in terms of five fantasies of: control; knowledge and reason; inclusion; productivity; and victimhood. My argument is that while fantasy is an inescapable element that inevitably structures what we take to be 'reality', education policy might strive to inhabit fantasy differently, thereby finding ways of escaping its current mode of seeing education with eyes wide shut.
This Philosophy Kitchen's issue is about the dialogue between -mainly Lacanian- psychoanalysis and philosophy upon the theme of subjectivation.
Nunca como hoje os media foram tão ubíquos e penetrantes de um ponto de vista social. A partir deles, transformamos categorias estruturantes da nossa vida e adotamos novas formas de ação. Neles e a partir deles construímos discursos, relações, a perceção de nós mesmos e dos outros. Ainda a partir deles, projetamos modos de vida em comum. A história dos media mostra-nos como sempre o fizemos. Contudo, sentimos que nunca com a escala, o alcance e a intensidade de hoje.Apesar de todas as novidades e importantes transformações, a questão principal não é original e pode ser colocada de forma simples: como viver uma vida melhor com os media? Ou, noutros termos, como aproveitar as oportunidades deste novo ecossistema, e, ao mesmo tempo, limitar os riscos e as ameaças que ele esconde? Como foi dito, trata-se de questões que não são novas e que, sob diferentes formas, acompanharam a emergência de anteriores formas de mediação, da escrita à imprensa e ao telégrafo.A estas questões, colocadas hoje, este livro responde com uma proposta de compreensão sociológica dos novos media. Sabemos que desde o seu aparecimento os media se encontram ligados de forma essencial às sociedades que os acolhem: o estudo de uns implicando o estudo das outras. Num tempo marcado pela multimedialidade, pelas "redes sociais online", pelos dispositivos móveis e pelos recursos de interatividade, este livro afirma a sua atualidade ao propor-se enunciar e analisar criticamente as mudanças sociais que lhes estão associadas.
El hombre posmoderno es un Narciso es busca de su identidad. La Evaporación del Padre ha cambiado las dinámicas de relación con el Otro y la capacidad de construir una propia identidad tiene que recurrir a los objetos de consumo. En este estudio se propone un camino que va desde la teoría clásica del Psicoanálisis, hasta una nueva perspectiva que entra en el campo del Marketing y del estudio del objeto de consumo.
El inglés es una de las lenguas que más valoraciones suscita en todo el mundo. Apreciaciones como lengua internacional o lengua de comunicación y sus supuestas cualidades intrínsecas han generado una serie de preconceptos que no se sostienen desde un punto de vista lingüístico. Sin embargo, se trata de prejuicios que están latentes y que configuran un espacio hegemónico en el que el inglés ocupa un rol subordinante. Esta investigación analiza los prejuicios lingüísticos hacia el inglés que presenta una muestra de informantes cubanos comprendidos entre los 18 y los 30 años. Así, se toma como objeto de este estudio sociolingüístico a la juventud cubana en tanto que agente
social que marcará el rumbo de Cuba en las próximas décadas. El trabajo de campo se ha realizado en La Habana y se ha empleado una metodología cualitativa basada en entrevistas semi-dirigidas como herramienta para extraer los datos.
English is one of the most valuated language around the world. Valuations as global language or language of communication and its intrinsic supposed qualities to the language have organized a string of preconceptions that are not held from a linguistic point of view. However, they are latent prejudices which form a hegemonic space where English takes a principal role up. This research analyses the linguistic prejudices towards English presented by a sample of Cuban informants between 18 and 30 years old. Thus, the Cuban youth, as the social agent that is going to mark the course of Cuba in the coming decades, is the object of this sociolinguistic research. The fieldwork was conducted in Havana and has a qualitative methodology that utilizes a semi-structured
interview as the data collection tool.
New Directions in Mobile Media and Performance explores various performative projects and forms of expression that have emerged since the onset of the smartphone. It focuses mainly on new concepts and developments that have emerged in mobile media performance. It showcases the intimate and phenomenological mobile aesthetic that has been unfolding within networked performance and media art projects for over a decade and a half. This aesthetic utilises the potential and affordances with each iteration and update of modern smartphones.
Themes of embodiment, presence, liveness and connection through mobile, networked, and remote technology are revisited in the context of HD mobile cameras, selfies and live video streaming from the phone, as well as the impact of peer production, opensource and Maker culture on mobile media performance practices. It explores the surge in development of wearable devices in performance, as well as how the ‘quantified-self movement’ has affected performance works. It deals with concepts and developments in intermedial performance that incorporate mobile and wearable devices, especially from the artist’s, designer’s or dramaturge’s perspective as the creator and their creative process, working with technology as a collaborator, not just a tool or guide.
The book demonstrates how artists have repurposed the device – transforming it from merely a communication device, using voice and text only – to become a new collaborative medium, a full visual, synaesthetic, interactive and performative tool of deeper expression and social change. It discusses seminal works and the evolution of the medium, within intermedial digital art and performance practices as medium for artistic expression, creative process and staged performances. It focuses on projects and artists who have pushed mobile media performance beyond the conventional blackbox. Emerging visual, digital, interactive, tactile, gestural and theatrical or performance projects that incorporate mobile or wearable devices, used as vehicles for more challenging, experimental, experiential and immersive performative artworks are highlighted.
The book also contextualises Baker’s own media research and performance practice within the larger landscape with the field. It is bookended with interviews with the artists themselves on their creative process and intentions.
It is the outcome of three years of research of artistic works around the world, interviews, in-person viewings of performances, as well as incorporating and reflecting on her own ongoing practice and projects in context.
Today political participation and inclusiveness are regarded as values that are indispensible for democratic decision-making. In environmental governance research, debates concern how to include non-human stakeholders, who and what can participate and can be represented among those affected by environmental policies. The values that started and influenced such debates have traditionally been articulated by the green ideology and political parties in combination with their other guiding principles (ecological wisdom, social justice, participatory democracy, nonviolence, sustainability and respect for diversity). In global and transnational environmental governance however participatory practices do not ensure the quality of the participation or the inclusiveness of the processes. In fact, participation is largely instrumentalised, rather than actualising green values.
This paper discusses the extent to which participation indicates democratization in transnational governance and asks what type of participation has a democratising value. To do this, I ask: Is the individual political subject or the civil society in general emancipated through participation, whereby participation becomes a democratizing practice? Otherwise, does the participatory practice act as a co-option strategy, or a process of legitimation for the already existing power structures?
In the last decade, we have witnessed a second methodological revolution in research into the Trypillia megasites of Ukraine – the largest sites in fourth-millennium BC Europe and possibly the world. However, these methodological advances have not been accompanied by parallel advances in the understanding of the nature and development of the megasites. New data have led to a ‘tipping point’ which leads us to reject the traditional interpretation of megasites as long-term centres permanently occupied by tens of thousands of people.
The contention of the alternative approach is the temporary, short-term dwelling of much smaller populations at megasites such as Nebelivka. In this article, the authors present two alternative models for the gradual emergence of the highly structured plan of the Trypillia megasite.
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