Lacan and Religion PDF
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LACAN AND RELIGION This page intentionally left blank LACAN AND RELIGION ARON DUNLAP R O Routledge U T L E Taylor & Francis Group D G ELONDON AND NEW YORK First published in 2014 by Acumen Published 2014 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group, an informa business © Aron Dunlap, 2014 Th is book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notices Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. : 978- 1- 84465-703-2 (hardcover) : 978- 1- 84465- 704-9 (paperback) British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. For my father. This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Introduction 1 1. Intellectual biography 6 2. Th e basic concepts 32 3. Jouissance and feminine sexuality 80 4. A review of the literature 107 5. Lacan as a theologian 141 Notes 165 Further reading 170 Bibliography 174 Index 181 vii This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION Religion is a symptom … As for being relieved of a symptom, I promise them nothing. (Lacan 1975) I have one problem, and I wouldn’t trade it for a thousand solutions. (Turkish proverb) Th is book is a general introduction to the life and work of the French psycho- analyst Jacques Lacan, as well as an attempt to understand Lacan in relation to the discourses of religion and theology. Our guiding thread throughout will be the clinical origins and contexts of Lacan’s thought, in accord with the constant reminder he gave his listeners that, notwithstanding his many forays into philosophy, art and religion, he was fi rst and foremost an analyst: “We enter this fi eld of knowledge by way of a unique experience that con- sists, quite simply, in being psychoanalyzed” (Lacan 2008: 9). To neglect the importance of Lacan’s work as an analyst – in the attempt to fi t his thought into a philosophical or religious mould of some sort – would only serve to distort Lacan’s thought and make a challenging writer that much harder to approach. Furthermore, it will be for us precisely the clinical perspec- tive that will allow us to consider, in the fi nal chapter, what resources Lacan might provide for the religious scholar or the theologian. While Lacan was an avowed atheist who would perhaps have blanched at the prospect of a book that reads him from the perspective of religion and theology, there is nevertheless something resolutely theological in the way that he situates religious content in his discourse. He does not sub- sume religion under psychoanalysis, as did his master Freud; on the con- trary, he quite freely admits that it is always the religious aspect that takes precedence in the psychic life of the human subject. However, Lacan is not interested in a comparative study of religion or in speculating as to what role, in general, religion or religions might play in a culture or for an individual. Lacan is much more concerned with accepting – on faith, we might say – the religious material that an analysand (that is, the person 1
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