English 3250: Topics in Contemporary Literary Theory: Lacan, Sexuation, Perversion

Spring 2007 W 4:30-7 309 Classroom South

Dr. Calvin Thomas
Office: GCB 907
Office Hours: M 1-4, W 1-3, and by appointment
Phone: 404-654-6157
e-mail: cthomas@gsu.edu

From the point of view of psychoanalysis the exclusive sexual interest felt by men for
women is a problem that needs elucidating and not a self-evident fact.
— Sigmund Freud

There is no such thing as a sexual relation.

—Jacques Lacan

We can begin to appreciate just how strange, how distant from the normalizing
perspective on love and sex, psychoanalytic theory really is. In its most fundamental
formulations psychoanalysis is a queer theory.
—Tim Dean

Course Description

What the course is about: In this course we will examine psychoanalytic (i.e., Freudian and
Lacanian) theories of sexual structuration (or “sexuation”), sexual normalization, and sexual
deviation (“perversion” or “resistance to regimes of the normal”).

Why the course is important: The value of psychoanalysis—both as a clinical practice and as a
mode of socio-cultural critique—is that it does not assume any of the above phenomena as
natural givens or self-evident “facts” but rather sees each as a problem in need of interpretation,
elucidation, and explanation. Of course, the explanations that psychoanalysis offers for the
occurrence of “normal” heterosexual masculinity and femininity—and for “polymorphously
perverse” deviations therefrom—are highly debatable, as is the question of whether
psychoanalytic theory challenges or reinforces an oppressive normativity. But again, the
inestimable value of psychoanalysis for critique is that it holds normativity to account and
attempts to account for sexuation rather accepting its formations as natural (much less super-
natural or divinely ordained) facts.

How we will proceed: After reviewing some major statements by Freud, such as the Three
Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, we will proceed to some “classical” Lacanian essays (“The
Mirror Stage,” “The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious,” “The Signification of the
Phallus”) before moving on to the center-piece of the course, which will be our reading of
Lacan’s 20th Seminar, called Encore: On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge.
Most of what we will read thereafter is commentary on the 20th Seminar by a host of Lacanian
explicators, such as Slavoj Zizek, Bruce Fink, Joan Copjec, Charles Shepherdson, Renata Salecl,
Jacques-Alain Miller, Colette Soler, Tim Dean, and others.

Why you should be warned: Please be advised at the outset that none of what we’re going to read
this semester is easy. Lacan is notoriously difficult, so much so that one commentator, Jane
Gallop, in her book Reading Lacan, goes so far as to speak of the profound “malaise” that is
often produced by reading Lacan and of the unsettling sense of being non-identical with oneself
that the reader of Lacan can experience. There are a number of reasons, which we will discuss,
for Lacan’s obstruse and challenging prose style. For now let’s just say that if he bad news about
Lacan is that his thought is so difficult that it requires a specialized critical dictionary just to
make rudimentary sense of his willfully opaque (perhaps perverse) language, the good news is
that such a dictionary exists and that I have made it available to you.

Texts:

Dylan Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis

Jacques Lacan, The Seminar, Book XX, Encore: On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and
Knowledge
Charles Shepherdson, Vital Signs: Nature, Culture, Psychoanalysis
Renata Salecl, ed., Sexuation
Course Reader, available at the Printshop, 6 Decatur Street

Contents of Course Reader:

Sigmund Freud, “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality,” “Some Psychical Consequences of
the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes,” “Fetishism,” “‘A Child is Being Beaten’: A
Contribution to the Study of the Origin of the Sexual Perversions,” “On Femininity,” “Female
Sexuality”

Toril Moi, “Is Anatomy Destiny?: Freud and Biological Determinism”

Anika Lemaire, from Jacques Lacan: “Synthesis of Lacanian Thought,” “Philosophy of

Language in Jacques Lacan,” “The Role of the Oedipus in Accession to the Symbolic”

Jacques Lacan, from Ecrits: “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function as Revealed in
Psychoanalytic Experience,” “Aggressiveness in Psychoanalysis,” “The Instance of the Letter in
the Unconscious, or Reason since Freud,” “The Signification of the Phallus”

Suzanne Barnard, Introduction to Reading Seminar XX

Bruce Fink, “Knowledge and Jouissance”

Slavoj Zizek, “The Real of Sexual Difference”

Bruce Fink, from The Lacanian Subject: “There’s No Such Thing as a Sexual Relationship”

Joan Copjec, from Read My Desire: “Sex and the Euthanasia of Reason”

Jacques-Alain Miller, “On Perversion”

Judith Feher-Gurewich, “A Lacanian Approach to the Logic of Perversion”

Deborah Luepnitz, “Beyond the Phallus: Lacan and Feminism”

Tim Dean, “Lacan and Queer Theory,” “Lacan Meets Queer Theory”

Jan Jagodzinksi, “Exploring the Riddle of Sex/Gender: Lacan’s Formulae of Sexuation in Queer
Contexts”

Requirements:

Attendance and participation: you are expected to attend each and every class meeting and to
read and be prepared to discuss the assigned material for that class (at the minimum, “be
prepared to discuss” means you have a question or two to ask—and I imagine that if you have in
fact read the material you will have nothing but questions). In the context of our once-a-week
schedule, “attendance” means you are here at 4:30 and you stay until 7:00. If you miss a
significant portion of the first part of class, or if you vanish after the break, you will be charged
with a half-cut (and, obviously, two instances of significant lateness or post-break departure add
up to one full cut). You are allowed ONE full-cut; beyond that, every unexcused full-cut from
class will lower your final grade one letter. If you think I’m kidding about this, just try me.

Writing: There will be a take-home exam after the third week of class (at the conclusion of the
Freud section) and after the sixth week (at the conclusion of the pre-Seminar XX Lacan section).
A 10-12 page research paper is due at 4:30 one week after the last day of class. Final grades will
be based upon the examinations (20% each), the research paper (40%), and participation (20%).

Etiquette: No food or snacks: consume before class or during break (when class resumes,
mastication ceases). No open lap-tops, notebooks, etc. Turn off all cell-phones and related
technology.

Schedule:
Week One:
Introduction to Psychoanalysis

Week Two:
Freud, “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality,” “Some Psychical Consequences of the
Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes,” “Fetishism,” “‘A Child is Being Beaten’: A
Contribution to the Study of the Origin of the Sexual Perversions”

Week Three:
Freud, “On Femininity,” “Female Sexuality”
Toril Moi, “Is Anatomy Destiny?: Freud and Biological Determinism”

Week Four:
Anika Lemaire, from Jacques Lacan: “Synthesis of Lacanian Thought,” “Philosophy of
Language in Jacques Lacan,” “The Role of the Oedipus in Accession to the Symbolic”

Week Five:
Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function as Revealed in Psychoanalytic
Experience,” “Aggressiveness in Psychoanalysis” “The Instance of the Letter in the
Unconscious, or Reason since Freud”

Week Six:
Jacques Lacan, “The Signification of the Phallus”
Jacques Lacan and Vladimir Granoff, “Fetishism: The Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real”
(handout)

Week Seven:
Suzanne Barnard, Introduction to Reading Seminar XX
Jacques Lacan, Seminar XX, I-VI

Week Eight:
Jacques Lacan, Seminar XX, VII-XI

Week Nine:
Bruce Fink, “Knowledge and Jouissance”
Slavoj Zizek, “The Real of Sexual Difference”
Bruce Fink, from The Lacanian Subject: “There’s No Such Thing as a Sexual Relationship”
Joan Copjec, from Read My Desire: “Sex and the Euthanasia of Reason”

Week Ten:
From Renata Salecl, ed., Sexuation:
Introduction and essays by Jacques-Alain Miller, Genevieve Morel, Colette Soler, and Darian
Leader

Week Eleven:
From Renata Salecl, ed., Sexuation:
Essays by Paul Verhaeghe, Alain Badiou, Alenka Zupancic, and Renata Salecl

Week Twelve:
Charles Shepherdson, Vital Signs: Nature, Culture, Psychoanalysis, Introduction,1-3

Week Thirteen:
Charles Shepherdson, Vital Signs: Nature, Culture, Psychoanalysis, 4-5, Afterword

Week Fourteen:
Jacques-Alain Miller, “On Perversion”
Judith Feher-Gurewich, “A Lacanian Approach to the Logic of Perversion”
Deborah Luepnitz, “Beyond the Phallus: Lacan and Feminism”

Week Fifteen:
Tim Dean, “Lacan and Queer Theory,” “Lacan Meets Queer Theory”
Jan Jagodzinksi, “Exploring the Riddle of Sex/Gender: Lacan’s Formulae of Sexuation in Queer
Contexts”
Reader:

Sigmund Freud, “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality,” “Some Psychical Consequences of
the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes,” “Fetishism,” “‘A Child is Being Beaten’: A
Contribution to the Study of the Origin of the Sexual Perversions,” “On Femininity,” “Female
Sexuality”

Toril Moi, “Is Anatomy Destiny?: Freud and Biological Determinism”

Anika Lemaire, from Jacques Lacan: “Synthesis of Lacanian Thought,” “Philosophy of

Language in Jacques Lacan,” “The Role of the Oedipus in Accession to the Symbolic”

Jacques Lacan, from Ecrits: “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function as Revealed in
Psychoanalytic Experience,” “Aggressiveness in Psychoanalysis,” “The Instance of the Letter in
the Unconscious, or Reason since Freud,” “The Signification of the Phallus”

Jacques Lacan and Vladimir Granoff, “Fetishism: The Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real”

Suzanne Barnard, Introduction to Reading Seminar XX

Bruce Fink, “Knowledge and Jouissance”

Slavoj Zizek, “The Real of Sexual Difference”

Bruce Fink, from The Lacanian Subject: “There’s No Such Thing as a Sexual Relationship”

Joan Copjec, from Read My Desire: “Sex and the Euthanasia of Reason”

Judith Feher-Gurewich, “A Lacanian Approach to the Logic of Perversion”

Deborah Luepnitz, “Beyond the Phallus: Lacan and Feminism”

Tim Dean, “Lacan and Queer Theory,” “Lacan Meets Queer Theory”

Jan Jagodzinksi, “Exploring the Riddle of Sex/Gender: Lacan’s Formulae of Sexuation in Queer
Contexts”