| Lutecium a non-school of Lacanian/Freudian Psychoanalysis San Francisco, California |
| Sacrifice; The ethic of phallic and feminine jouissance. Seminar Description by Rebecca Bauknight Ph.D., August 2008. |
The ethics of a feminine jouissance has been posited by a long line of feminist psychoanalytic writers who attempt to engage the phallic
economy through a position of difference. By engaging in a style of writing that emphasizes another voice that demands "speaking to
rather than being spoken for," this position of identity has attempted to gather and understand how not only the exclusion from
privileged forms of knowledge may have informed identity, but also how other knowledges permeated and offered the excluded subject
other types of relationships to the body and objects in the world. The transhistorical unconscious passage of these knowledges
generates a subspeak that several "minority" writers and academicians give voice to in a variety of settings where these voices are
celebrated, particularly in minority departments such as gender studies, afrocentric studies, etc.
We might wonder about what happens to these voices as they become partitioned off, ghettoized or shut down. Do they return to the
imaginary, to the departments that are less apt to move into the center of privileged knowledge? Do they, for example, hold much
weight in psychoanalytic discourse? Do these voices hold much weight in our clinical agencies, for example? For that matter, does
psychoanalysis as a heavily identified Eurocentric "white" discourse intermingle much in these departments? I believe the freedom of
speech, the freedom of writing unencumbered by a goal, an expectation, an authority is a Spinozean idea, a Spinozean ethic that is
planted on the side of the gaze and pleasure-that is planted on the side of enjoyment, possibility and hope.
But… without a much more refined understanding of the Lacanian ethic of jouissance, these voices of hope and excitement will
evaporate easily and not receive perhaps the wider possibility of recognition on a larger scale. Where it counts. And where it counts is
interesting because we will also talk about the financial and business discourse as this is the question of the day. If I follow my voice,
how will I ever make a living in this field... the field of psychoanalysis. Funny, as this is the very currency of the psychoanalytic field:
voice… expression...risk.
On the other hand, these voices that raise issues of a "different past," a past which enabled these subjectivities to be represented by
others, can easily be conflated with the Lacan's "object a," raising all sorts of fears of "identity politics" and utopic fantasias that in the
throws of their authentic voices and movements do not consider the existence of the historical privilege---the inescapable historical
fixture which provides the fertile ground on which any linguistic production exists. The problem with the fantasia and inflation of identity
is that it supplies the phallic economy with its transgressive and exciting "object a" as well. The "object a" that is painfully desirous of
the other-impossible to bear, unconscious part of me. That which I constantly project outward and can never fully possess. It is me, but
I can only recognize it as other. It is torn from me. It has to be mine. I have to possess it and bring it back to me to complete me. And in
those rare moments when I can almost bear it. I have it until it is ripped away again… and lost. It is lost again and again. Fannon writes
eloquently about his women patients and their forbidden fantasies about "him" as a Black Martinique man. It was surplus erotic
transference that interfered with the work. They wanted him more than their dreams. He became their dream. There is no transaction at
this point.
In this seminar we will speak to the ethics of voice, substance, freedom from a Spinozean ethic and then we will speak to the limits of
freedom and the ethics of both phallic and feminine jouissance set out by Lacan with the hopes that we can speak to the tensions that
exist between authenticity, identity, difference, body/REAL and the ethics of jouissance--in that jouissance may perpetuate rather than
allow a working through of deep historical wounds that brings us back to the impossible body/REAL and the symptoms that arise.
Please remember to bring your voices to this seminar. I know...it is easy to forget them.
About Community Seminar Series
Lutecium's community seminar is developed on the current interests insights and analytic formations of our students. We attempt to
take the questions and concerns generated by each previous seminar to determine the direction of our subsequent seminars. We try
to stay close to the pulse of conflict in motion by addressing controversial themes in order that we can continue to articulate and speak
to what has not yet been fully fleshed out. We seek those uncomfortable places and difficult topics in order to include societal issues
that are socially dark and potentially combustible so that we utilize the psychoanalytic attributes of articulation, self reflection and
understanding to work through conflicts within ourselves and others rather than enactment at the personal, social and political level.
We firmly believe that exclusions of class, race and gender orientation, academic and religious belief are societal enactments that we
are dedicated to addressing in tangible ways. Lutecium desires to open psychoanalysis to the potential talent that exists within our
diverse community. By generating a community format we, as faculty, hope to be working closely with our students in continuing to
understand and contribute to the currency of psychoanalysis as an international project that can contribute to the issues at hand.
economy through a position of difference. By engaging in a style of writing that emphasizes another voice that demands "speaking to
rather than being spoken for," this position of identity has attempted to gather and understand how not only the exclusion from
privileged forms of knowledge may have informed identity, but also how other knowledges permeated and offered the excluded subject
other types of relationships to the body and objects in the world. The transhistorical unconscious passage of these knowledges
generates a subspeak that several "minority" writers and academicians give voice to in a variety of settings where these voices are
celebrated, particularly in minority departments such as gender studies, afrocentric studies, etc.
We might wonder about what happens to these voices as they become partitioned off, ghettoized or shut down. Do they return to the
imaginary, to the departments that are less apt to move into the center of privileged knowledge? Do they, for example, hold much
weight in psychoanalytic discourse? Do these voices hold much weight in our clinical agencies, for example? For that matter, does
psychoanalysis as a heavily identified Eurocentric "white" discourse intermingle much in these departments? I believe the freedom of
speech, the freedom of writing unencumbered by a goal, an expectation, an authority is a Spinozean idea, a Spinozean ethic that is
planted on the side of the gaze and pleasure-that is planted on the side of enjoyment, possibility and hope.
But… without a much more refined understanding of the Lacanian ethic of jouissance, these voices of hope and excitement will
evaporate easily and not receive perhaps the wider possibility of recognition on a larger scale. Where it counts. And where it counts is
interesting because we will also talk about the financial and business discourse as this is the question of the day. If I follow my voice,
how will I ever make a living in this field... the field of psychoanalysis. Funny, as this is the very currency of the psychoanalytic field:
voice… expression...risk.
On the other hand, these voices that raise issues of a "different past," a past which enabled these subjectivities to be represented by
others, can easily be conflated with the Lacan's "object a," raising all sorts of fears of "identity politics" and utopic fantasias that in the
throws of their authentic voices and movements do not consider the existence of the historical privilege---the inescapable historical
fixture which provides the fertile ground on which any linguistic production exists. The problem with the fantasia and inflation of identity
is that it supplies the phallic economy with its transgressive and exciting "object a" as well. The "object a" that is painfully desirous of
the other-impossible to bear, unconscious part of me. That which I constantly project outward and can never fully possess. It is me, but
I can only recognize it as other. It is torn from me. It has to be mine. I have to possess it and bring it back to me to complete me. And in
those rare moments when I can almost bear it. I have it until it is ripped away again… and lost. It is lost again and again. Fannon writes
eloquently about his women patients and their forbidden fantasies about "him" as a Black Martinique man. It was surplus erotic
transference that interfered with the work. They wanted him more than their dreams. He became their dream. There is no transaction at
this point.
In this seminar we will speak to the ethics of voice, substance, freedom from a Spinozean ethic and then we will speak to the limits of
freedom and the ethics of both phallic and feminine jouissance set out by Lacan with the hopes that we can speak to the tensions that
exist between authenticity, identity, difference, body/REAL and the ethics of jouissance--in that jouissance may perpetuate rather than
allow a working through of deep historical wounds that brings us back to the impossible body/REAL and the symptoms that arise.
Please remember to bring your voices to this seminar. I know...it is easy to forget them.
About Community Seminar Series
Lutecium's community seminar is developed on the current interests insights and analytic formations of our students. We attempt to
take the questions and concerns generated by each previous seminar to determine the direction of our subsequent seminars. We try
to stay close to the pulse of conflict in motion by addressing controversial themes in order that we can continue to articulate and speak
to what has not yet been fully fleshed out. We seek those uncomfortable places and difficult topics in order to include societal issues
that are socially dark and potentially combustible so that we utilize the psychoanalytic attributes of articulation, self reflection and
understanding to work through conflicts within ourselves and others rather than enactment at the personal, social and political level.
We firmly believe that exclusions of class, race and gender orientation, academic and religious belief are societal enactments that we
are dedicated to addressing in tangible ways. Lutecium desires to open psychoanalysis to the potential talent that exists within our
diverse community. By generating a community format we, as faculty, hope to be working closely with our students in continuing to
understand and contribute to the currency of psychoanalysis as an international project that can contribute to the issues at hand.
| This Seminar meets 6pm - 8pm on Thursdays: 9/4, 9/18, 10/2, 10/16, 11/6, 11/20. Flood Building, 870 Market Street, San Francisco |
