From the Other Side: The Place of Feminine Jouissance in the Lacanian Clinic
What is this other jouissance to which women, the Other sex, and some men, have access? What are its clinical consequences? The work that Chantal Degril, Esther Faye, and Susan Schwartz will present in this year's Trans-Tasman Seminar arises from a cartel formed in response to Colette Soler's recent writing on the place of woman in Lacan's work: Une clinique d' exception (A clinic of exception) of 2022, and Lacan et l'être femme (Lacan and the woman being), published this year. As neither of these texts is translated into English, we would like to speak with you about some of the concepts that have particularly engaged our interest.
The Other side? We are referring to Lacan's logicised Table of Sexuation in Seminar XX, Encore (1972-1973), with the masculine (tout/all phallic) on the left and feminine (pastout/not-all phallic) on the right. The fact that some men are also on the feminine side of the table makes clear that the other jouissance has nothing to do with gender in any anatomical or identificatory sense. As a speaking being, woman is within the universal of phallic logic, the logic of language, and she experiences the phallic jouissance of the fantasy, drives and symptoms that belong to the language unconscious, and attempt to make the sexual relation exist. However, those on the Other side of the table of sexuation also have access to a supplementary, non-phallic jouissance, that cannot be spoken about as it is outside language. This is the position of the pastoute, the feminine not-all which is the focus of our research. It is a position occupied in relation to a particular jouissance, a jouissance that does not pertain to the phallic One, but is taken one by one.
The format of this year's Trans-Tasman Seminar varies from those prior: one Seminar on Saturday, October 10th with three papers, each exploring an aspect of the topic.
The image we have chosen to accompany our theme is 'Untitled 2013' by Elizabeth Newman. She was an Australian artist and Lacanian psychoanalyst who died this year. She explored ways of representing the unrepresentable in her art. In her book More than what there is, Newman said: "My practice consisted in making a cut in the material. I think of this cutting as a writing… and therefore as an articulation of a lack that doesn 't exist until after it is articulated. … Art of this sort seems to have a relation to time and to silence " (2013, 3-Ply, Melbourne). What can be spoken and what cannot.
Attendance is free upon registration.
To register and to receive the Zoom link, please email Esther Faye at esther.faye1@gmail.com
The Trans-Tasman Seminar
The Trans-Tasman seminar is the result of a collaboration between members of the Forum of Melbourne, Esther Faye and Susan Schwartz, and of the Forum of Aotearoa New Zealand, Chantal Degril, within the frame of the International of the Forums of the School of Psychoanalysis of the Forums of the Lacanian Field (IF-SPFLF). Its aim is to contribute to Lacanian discourse in our region and beyond by applying theoretical concepts to particular clinical cases. In 2024, Esther Faye and Susan Schwartz became members of the Forum of Aotearoa New Zealand.