Further reading list
for Theories of the Mind: Lacan

useful web links for Lacan are here

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You can follow the route below, which is the way I used to recommend people to get into Lacan. Or you can do this, which I think now is a better way.

Read Bruce Fink, A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and Technique; and The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance (harder, deeper). They are the best introduction to Lacan that I know.

(added February 2003).

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Making a start

The first thing is, to get a taste of Lacan and his followers, you should have read the three articles referred to in the lectures, which are available on the Web:

Belsey, Catherine, "The Romantic Construction of the Unconscious," Literature Politics & Theory, Ed. Francis Barker et al. New Accents, (London: Methuen, 1986) 57-76.

Ellman, Maud, "Blanche," Criticism and Critical Theory , Ed. Jeremy Hawthorne Stratford-upon-Avon Studies, (London: Edward Arnold, 1984) 99-110.

These two are in our Electronic Key Texts store.

Lacan, Jacques, "Seminar on 'The purloined letter'," The Purloined Poe , Ed. John P. Muller and William J. Richardson Trans. Jeffrey Mehlman (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956) 28-54.

This is on the Web.

The second thing, if the first thing doesn't put you off, is that to read Lacan, you must have read Freud. So you should also get hold of the Freud Reading List and at least read the Introductory Lectures; at least. Really you should have a pretty confident knowledge of Freud.

Thirdly, having done that, you should read

Wright, Elizabeth, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Theory in Practice , New Accents. (London: Methuen, 1984) Main Library 1 PN 98.P9

and then

Bowie, Malcolm, Freud, Proust and Lacan, Theory as Fiction , (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) Main Library 1 PN 56.P6

and/or

Clement, Catherine, The Lives and Legends of Jacques Lacan , (New York, Guildford: Columbia University Press, 1983)
Main Library 1 s BF 175

and/or

MacCabe, Colin, The Talking Cure, Essays in Psychoanalysis and Language , (London: Macmillan, 1981) Main Library 1 s BF 173

and/or

Turkle, Sherry, Psychoanalytic Politics; Freud's French Revolution , (London, Burnett Books: Deutsch, 1979) Main Library 1 s BF 175.

These are all good general introductions; some are more difficult than others, and they differ in scope and emphasis very considerably.

After that, you're on your own. There are hundreds of articles on Lacanian criticism in the library: use the list of articles at the end of the Freud Reading List, or simply go to the CD ROM reader in the Library, log into the MLA catalogue, and search on 'Lacan' (or use LION). You'll be amazed.

Bonne chance!

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