by Cormac Doherty | Vol 33 (3) 2015
This paper explores psychosis in Jeff Nichols’ 2011 film Take Shelter, bringing into proximity Lacan’s concept of foreclosure with Korzybski’s concept of abstraction. Lacan conceptualises psychosis as the individual encountering life experiences that cannot be reconciled with their existing semantic frameworks, creating gaps that need to be plugged by being named and identified. The genesis of the psychotic structure is the foreclosure of the Name of the Father. For Lacan, psychotic delusions function to stabilise these internally destructive and perplexing encounters, by providing shape to life’s experiences. Korzybski’s model of cognition focuses on how the individual “abstracts” from their experience, how each person creates their own semantic environment based on how they attend to incoming information, and on the subsequent inferences they make. Both thinkers acknowledge the destabilising nature of chance or perplexing encounters on the human psyche, in the form of the Real for Lacan, and the territory for Korzybski. Furthermore, both emphasise the importance of the subjective position, how each individual makes sense of their world through language.
by Alain Pringels | Vol 33 (1) 2015
In 2010 I was invited to take part in a cartel with Filip Geerardyn, Wim Matthys and Elisabeth Van Dam for a close reading of Lacan’s text “Kant with Sade”. In the aftermath of this I wrote this text, which is neither a record of the cartel, nor an attempt to interpret or to summarize Lacan’s text. It is the result of following the tracks that Lacan sets out, more a Deleuzian Rhizome than a logical or critical argument. Following these tracks leads to a dramatic discovery. Lacan’s act of writing is an invitation to work through some crucial questions on ethics (Kant and Freud) rather than to consume Sade’s literature or to consider the case of the French libertine.
by Abe Geldhof | Vol 32 (4) 2014
In his PhD defence the author discusses the theoretical evolution of the Lacanian concepts jouissance and psychosis. He analyses how nuanced shifts in Lacan’s thinking on psychosis influence his theory on jouissance, and vice versa, and how changes in his conceptualization of jouissance force a reconsideration of his theory of psychosis. This is done based on the cases Lacan presents throughout his writings and seminars.
by Wim Matthys | Vol 32 (4) 2014
This essay is based on the public defence of a dissertation in which the cinematography of Stanley Kubrick is analysed in light of Lacan’s concepts of fundamental fantasy, jouissance and gaze. Four of Kubrick’s films are discussed and located in the academic literature and the methodological and theoretical frameworks are outlined. In the thesis it is proposed that the narratives of these four films are underpinned by a concrete scenario of a fundamental fantasy: “C observes: A overpowers B”, and that this scenario forms the basis of both the staging of a taxonomy of jouissance and of the evocation of the gaze as instance of the object a. In conclusion, it is outlined how these findings align with the methodological point of departure of the research project.
by Filip Geerardyn | Vol 32 (2) 2014
Akira Kurosawa’s movie Rashōmon (1950) is traditionally referred to as a clear illustration of the subjectivity of human perception and memory. However, the notion of the so-called Rashōmon effect reflects only a superficial reading of Kurosawa’s film. It is argued, both from a historical and from a psychoanalytic point of view, that the filmmaker’s interpretation of the medieval Japanese story addresses two important distinctions, far beyond the reach of traditional psychological research: 1, the distinction between perception and gaze, and 2, the distinction between guilt and responsibility. It is further argued that in addressing these two distinctions, Rashōmon, upon its release in 1950, confronted the world (and not just the regimes of the Japanese Empire and the Nazis) with its responsibility for the atrocities of World War II.
