Lacan Reading List

Making a start

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

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.

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.

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. I offer some further suggestions below. 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'. You'll be amazed.

Bonne chance!

Further reading

Interpreting Lacan , Ed. William Kerrigan and Joseph H. Smith. Psychiatry and the humanities. (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1983) 6: Main Library 1 s BF 173

Criticism and Lacan, Essays and Dialogue on Language, Structure, and the Unconscious , Ed. Patrick Colm Hogan and Lalita Pandit. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990) Main Library 1 BF 173

Benvenuto, Bice and Roger Kennedy, The Works of Jacques Lacan; an Introduction , (London: Free Association, 1986) Main Library 1 BF 173

Coward, Rosalind and John Ellis, Language and Materialism, Developments in Semiology and the Theory of the Subject, (London (etc.): Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977) Main Library 2 s 99

Davis, Robert Con and Ronald Schleifer, Contemporary Literary Criticism, Literary and Cultural Studies , (New York, London: Longman, 1989) Main Library 1 PN 94

Felman, Shoshana, Literature and Psychoanalysis, the Question of Reading Otherwise , (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982) Main Library 1 PN 56.P6

Felman, Shoshana, Jacques Lacan and the Adventure of Insight, Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Culture , (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987) Main Library 1 s BF 175

Gallop, Jane, Reading Lacan , (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985) Main Library 1 s BF 175

Grosz, Elizabeth, Jacques Lacan: a Feminist Introduction , (London: Routledge, 1990)

Jefferson, Ann and David Robey, Modern Literary Theory, a Comparative Introduction , (London: Batsford, 1986) Main Library 2 PN 45

Lacan, Jacques, The Language of the Self, the Function of Language in Psychoanalysis, (Baltimore (Md): John Hopkins Press, 1968) Main Library 1 s BF 175
Main Library 1 PR 14

Lacan, Jacques, Television . Le Champ freudien. (Paris: Seuil, 1974) Main Library 1 p BF 173

Lacan, Jacques, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis , Ed. J.-A. M. ;. (London, Hogarth Press: Institute of Psycho-analysis, 1977) Main Library 1 s BF 173

Lacan, Jacques, Feminine Sexuality , Jacques Lacan and the Ecole Freudienne, Ed. J. M. a. J. Rose. (London: Macmillan, 1982) Main Library 2 HQ 1206

Lacan, Jacques, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Bk.1, Freud's papers on technique 1953-1954 , Ed. J.-A. Miller. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) Main Library 1 BF 175

Lacan, Jacques, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Bk.2, The ego in Freud's theory and in the technique of psychoanalysis, 1954-1955 , Ed. J.-A. Miller. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) Main Library 1 BF 175

Lee, Jonathan Scott, Jacques Lacan , Twayne's world authors series, TWAS 817, French Literature. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990) Main Library 1 PN 98.P9

Lemaire, Anika, Jacques Lacan , (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979) Main Library 1 s BF 173

MacCannell, Juliet Flower, Figuring Lacan, Criticism and the Cultural Unconscious , (London: Croom Helm, 1986) Main Library 1 BF 175

Macey, David, Lacan in Contexts , (London: Verso, 1988) Main Library 1 BF 173

Muller, John P. and William J. Richardson, Lacan and Language, Reader's Guide to Ecrits , (New York: International Universities Press, 1982) Main Library 1 s BF 173

Muller, John P. and William J. Richardson, The Purloined Poe, Lacan, Derrida & Psychoanalytic Reading , (Baltimore, London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988) Main Library 2 s PS 2618.P8

Ragland-Sullivan, Ellie, Jacques Lacan and the Philosophy of Psychoanalysis , (London: Croom Helm, 1986) Main Library 1 s BF 175

Rice, Philip and Patricia Waugh, Modern Literary Theory, a Reader , (London: Edward Arnold, 1989) Main Library 2 PN 45 Contains Jacques Derrida, 'Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences'; and Lacan's 'The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytical experience'.

Schneiderman, Stuart, Jacques Lacan, the Death of an Intellectual Hero , (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Main Library 1 s BF 173

Smith, Joseph H. and William Kerrigan, Interpreting Lacan , (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983) Main Library 1 s BF 173

Stanton, Martin, Outside the Dream, Lacan and French Styles of Psychoanalysis , (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983) Main Library 1 s BF 173 Barnes Medical Lib. 1 RC 504

Young, Robert, Untying the Text, a Post-structuralist Reader , (Boston, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981) Main Library 2 PN 98.S7