Yet, in his 2006 work, How To Read Lacan, Zizek seeks to help illuminate some of Lacan’s most dense and oft-misunderstood concepts. Even so, let’s be brutally honest: any attempt to succinctly summarize the works of Lacan seems, from the outset, to be a fraught enterprise. Zizek consistently employs Lacan’s work throughout his writings and is clearly well-versed in Lacanian theory. Moving from his native Yugoslavia in the 1980s, Zizek earned his second doctorate at the University of Paris under Jacques-Alain Miller and François Regnault as he translated various works from Freud, Althusser, and Lacan. Zizek, undoubtedly, is well-qualified to give a summation of Lacan’s thought.

Here, I am talking about no one other than that infamous Marxist philosopher, Slavoj Zizek. So, it makes a certain kind of sense that the one to review and summarize Lacan’s most influential thoughts would likewise be an academic celebrity. Regardless, his lectures have deeply influenced contemporary psychoanalytic discourse and his theories still show up in many departments on university campuses, including linguistics, philosophy, and film theory. Lacan was not, however, a prolific writer he wrote very little of his theory and what does exist (often via essays and lecture transcripts) is often dense, highly complex, and frustratingly obtuse.įurthermore, he was criticized for his (mis)use of mathematical theory, eclectic use of sources, and for his “variable-length psychoanalytic session,” in which he charged patients alike, regardless if their sessions lasted an hour or only a few minutes (leading Noam Chomsky to label him a “total charlatan.”). Throughout the 60s and 70s, Lacan taught seminars in Paris, Yale, MIT, and Columbia, conversed with popular writers and artists, and enjoyed a level of fame that is seldom seen by most contemporary academics. He also occupied what is, by today’s standards, a strange position in society: an academic celebrity. Jacques Lacan is arguably one of the most contentious figures within the field of 20th century psychoanalysis.

Slavoj zizek how to read lacan