Reading Lacan’s Seminar VIII

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Toward an Erotics of Truth: Commentary on Session I

   • Derek Hook

   Pages 1-13

3. “Set and Characters” and “The Metaphor of Love: Phaedrus”—Commentary on Sessions II and III

   • Dan Mills

   Pages 15-41

4. “The Psychology of the Rich: Pausanias”—Commentary on Session IV

   • Stephanie Swales

   Pages 43-50

5. “Medical Harmony: Eryximachus”—Commentary on Session V

   • Calum Neill

   Pages 51-59

6. First as Comedy, Then as Tragicomedy: Castration, Atopia, and Ab-Sex Sense—Commentary on Sessions VI and VII

   • Anthony Ballas

   Pages 61-75

7. Hypothesizing Love: Lacan and Plato’s Symposium—Commentary on Session VII

   • Cindy Zeiher

   Pages 77-88

8. “From Episteme to Mythous”: Commentary on Session VIII

   • Owen Hewitson

   Pages 89-97

9. The Question of the Meaning of Ágalma: Between Hermeneutics, Topology, and Unconcealment—Commentary on Sessions IX and X

   • Hue Woodson

   Pages 99-119

10. Agalma: Commentary on Session X

    • Ed Pluth

    Pages 121-126

11. Between Socrates and Alcibiades: Commentary on Session XI

    • Zachary Tavlin

    Pages 127-135

12. Socrates as an Analyst: A Reading of “Transference in the Present” Commentary on Session XII

    • Frederic C. Baitinger

    Pages 137-149

13. “A Critique of Countertransference”: Commentary on Session XIII

    • Miguel Rivera

    Pages 151-161

14. In the Name of Desire: A Reading of Lacan’s “Demand and Desire in the Oral and Anal Stage”—Commentary on Session XIV

    • Frederic C. Baitinger

    Pages 163-173

15. “Oral, Anal, and Genital”: Commentary on Session XV

    • Jonathan Dickstein

    Pages 175-181

16. Killing the Soul with Zucchi’s Painting: Commentary on Session XVI

    • Joseph R. Shafer

    Pages 183-196

17. The Art of Questioning “Real Presence”

    • Joseph R. Shafer

    Pages 197-207

18. “Real Presence”: Commentary on Session XVIII

    • Stephanie Swales

    Pages 209-218

19. The Claudel Sessions: Commentary on Sessions XIX–XXII

    • Ed Pluth

    Pages 219-234

20. Paradoxes of Transference and the Place of the Psychoanalyst: Commentary on Session XXIII

    • Rodrigo Gonsalves

    Pages 235-246

This book provides 18 lively commentaries on Lacan’s Seminar VIII, Transference (1960-61) that explore its theoretical and philosophical consequences in the clinic, the classroom, and society. Including contributions from clinicians as well as scholars working in philosophy, literature, and culture studies, the commentaries presented here represent a wide-range of disciplinary perspectives on the concept of transference. Some chapters closely follow the structure of the seminar’s sessions, while others take up thematic concerns or related sessions such as the commentary on sessions 19 to 22 which deal with Lacan’s discussion of Claudel’s Coûfontaine trilogy. 


This book is not a compendium to Lacan’s seminar. Instead it attempts to capture through shorter contributions a spectrum of voices debating, deliberating, and learning with Lacan’s concept. In doing so it can be seen to engage with transference conceptually in a manner that matches the spirit of Lacan’s seminar itself.


The book will provide an invaluable new resource for Lacan scholars working across the fields of psychoanalytic theory, clinical psychology, philosophy and cultural studies.

• Jacques Lacan
• psychoanalytic theory
• Transference
• clinical psychology
• Plato
• love
• the unconscious
• subject-as-lack
• Pausanius
• Aristophanes
• medical harmony
• castration
• atopia
• Agalma
• Countertransference
• Jacopo Zucchi
• symbolic phallus
• Paul Claudel
• Ego-Ideal
• Sigmund Freud

“This indispensable collection is requisite for making one’s way through Lacan’s Seminar VIII. This pivotal seminar’s role in the turn of Lacan’s thought after the Ethics seminar has long been unexplored territory. But the essays included here make it clear that this seminar on the transference displays Lacan at the height of his powers. If one wants to understand what he’s thinking at the key turning point of his thought, this volume is an absolute necessity.” (Todd McGowan, Associate Professor of English at the University of Vermont, USA)  
  

• Boise State University, Boise, USA

  Gautam Basu Thakur

• Westfield, USA

  Jonathan Dickstein

Gautam Basu Thakur is associate professor of English at Boise State, USA and author of Postcolonial Theory and Avatar (2015) and Postcolonial Lack (2020) and co-editor of Lacan and the Nonhuman (2018).


Jonathan Dickstein is an Independent Scholar of Lacanian psychoanalysis, computer science, and mathematics. He is the co-editor of Lacan and the Nonhuman (2018).

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