Published in french as early as in 1975, Encore may be the most emblematic Lacan's Séminaire. First, plenty of ideas developped in it are significant and will renew psychoanlytic theory for years; then, Lacan's style reaches its highest point in the countless ways he distorts language and plays with it. During Encore, the final formalization of the non-existence of the sexual rapport (with the sexuation formulas table) and the full completion of jouissance's theory will progressively give way to what will become the topologic period of Lacan's teaching. In the end of Encore, he introduces his famous booromean knot on which he'll work during his last 8 years. The US edition is called The Seminar, Book XX : On feminine sexuality, the limits of love and knowledge : Encore.

extract : "Et pourquoi ne pas interpréter une face de l'Autre, la face de Dieu, comme supportée par la jouissance féminine" (something like : "And why not interpreting a face of the Other, the face of God, like supported by feminine jouissance")

note : you can download the "Lacan fonts" for strange things like the "La-crossed" here http://www.lutecium.org/gaogoa/textes/fonts/FontsLacan.zip

13. Séminaire XX (1972-1973) "Encore" (20 février 1973)

A central (and really beautiful) session in this central Séminaire. Lacan speaks about the specificity of the feminine jouissance and the mystical jouissance. In the published version, the chapter is called "Dieu et la jouissance de La Femme" ("God and the jouissance of The Woman »).

14. Séminaire XXI (1973-1974) "Les non-dupes errent" (13 novembre 1973)

First session.

15. Séminaire XXI (1973-1974) "Les non-dupes errent" (20 novembre 1973)

Lacan reads (sometimes in german) and comments on Freud's text about the occult.

16. Séminaire XXIV (1976-1977) "L'insu que sait de l'une-bévue s'aile à mourre" (14 décembre 1976)


First session

Text in French: http://gaogoa.free.fr/Seminaires_HTML/24-INSU/INSU14121976bis.htm

17. Séminaire XXIV (1976-1977): "L'insu que sait de l'une-bévue s'aile à mourre" (11 janvier 1977)


First session

Text in French: http://gaogoa.free.fr/Seminaires_HTML/24-INSU/INSU11011977.htm

From 1953 to 1980, the Séminaire of the french psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) is the laboratory, the work-in-progress for his « Return to Freud » project. A return to the real meaning of Freud's discovery, including the recent contributions made by linguistics (Saussure, Jakobson) and structural anthropology (Lévi-Strauss), and then through formal logic and topology.

Lacan's Séminaire was a singular place and moment, almost weekly, every year from november to june. Without any connection with university, it was public and open to everyone. In the beginning, Lacan reads through again and comments on the works of Freud for a limited audience made of psychiatrists and psychoanalysts in training. Later, as Lacan's thought goes more and more original and as his exuberant personnality - His Style - makes him known beyond the strictly psychoanalytical circles, the Séminaire becomes a kind of place in vogue where you sometimes wanted to be seen. You could see lacanian analysts, some patients of these analysts, students, artists or intellectuals (for example, Philippe Sollers is known for frequenting the Séminaire in the 70's). At this time, Lacan often complains about the growing size of his audience.

Initially started at the Hôpital Sainte-Anne (Paris, 1953-1963), the Séminaire continues at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure (Paris, 1964-1969) with the help of Louis Althusser and Claude Lévi-Strauss when Lacan is banned from the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1963 (his Séminaire becomes unwelcome at Sainte-Anne). Finally, the last Séminaires take place in the Faculté de Droit Panthéon (Paris, 1969-1980).

Every year, during the first session, Lacan announces a title, a theme. The early Séminaires are mostly centered on commenting the main classical psychoanalysis concepts (the Ego, the transference, the indentification, etc.). Later, themes and titles became more strictly lacanian (sometimes based on homophonies and puns) as the concepts and their models (logic or topologic) become really specific and personal.

Very few sessions were previously written up by Lacan, so a stenographer had to transcribe the whole sessions (http://www.ecole-lacanienne.net/bibliotheque.php?id=13). However, at the present time, only 12 Séminaires out of 27 have been published. The composition of a text from the stenographies (or even from the audio material) has always seemed to come up against the fundamentally oral nature of Lacan's teaching and his totally improvising style. The first official publications of the Séminaire started in the early 70's, but in such a slowly rate that many unofficial versions of unpublished Séminaires have immediatly spread into the psychoanalysts circles.

The first known private audio recordings of the Séminaire seems to date from 1969. Curiously, despite Lacan's famous verve or grandiloquence and his matchless improvising oral style, none of the 500 sessions has been cleanly and officially recorded (neither audio nor video).