The Major Literary Seminars of Jacques Lacan

The Major Literary Seminars of Jacques Lacan considers the three key phases of Lacan’s interest in literary topics.

Santanu Biswas first examines the seminars given between 1955 and 1961, in which Lacan spoke on Edgar Allan Poe’s short story "The Purloined Letter", Hamlet, Sophocles’ Antigone, and Paul Claudel’s The Coûfontaine Trilogy, and where literature is related to meaning. This is followed by an exploration of Lacan’s seminar on "Lituraterre" in 1971, wherein Lacan elaborates on the different ways in which literature appeared to turn towards lituraterre. Finally, Biswas considers Lacan’s 1975–1976 seminar on James Joyce, who created literature out of “litter” and was concerned with jouissance rather than with meaning.

The Major Literary Seminars of Jacques Lacan will be of great interest to Lacanian psychoanalysts, other mental health practitioners interested in the teachings of Lacan, and academics and students of Lacanian studies, literature, and psychoanalysis.