Simply, in society, all that exists is founded on segregation,
and on fraternity first of all.” (Lacan, Seminar 17, p. 114).
and on fraternity first of all.” (Lacan, Seminar 17, p. 114).
“The founding crime [for a new society] is not
the murder of the father [a reference to Freud’s myth of society's creation],
but the will to murder he who embodies the jouissance [enjoyment] that I
reject.” (Eric
Laurent, Racism 2.0, Hurly-Burly, No. 11, 2014, pp. 217-222,
also available on the analiticus blogspot.)
also available on the analiticus blogspot.)
L’Envers
de Paris is the name of a psychoanalytical association in Paris,
France.
L’Envers de Psychanalyse is the
name of Lacan’s Seminar 17, which took place in Paris, 1969-1970, the
year after the great turbulence of 1968.
The Seminar
was transcribed, then edited and published by Jacques-Alain Miller (in French)
by Seuil in 1991. It was translated into English by Russell Grigg (a colleague
based in Melbourne, Australia) and published by Norton in 2007. In his
translator’s note at the front of the book, Russell remarks that ‘envers’ can be translated as ‘back’,
‘verso’, ‘lining’, ‘underside’, ‘flipside’, ‘underneath’, ‘bad side,’ with
connotations of ‘the unseen’ and, of course, ‘the obscene’. He chose to
translate the title as The Other Side
of Psychoanalysis.
And envers as a spoken or
written word is not that far from enfer – the French word for hell.
On 10 June, 2017, this coming Saturday, L’Envers de Paris is holding a study
day, Segregations (see blog
post of 9 May, below or via the sidebar index). The current chair of the
association, Camilo Ramirez (a position held for two years at a time) decided
to focus his group by inviting the dozen or so ‘vectors’ (the rather intriguing
name of the study groups that conduct the work of the association) to focus on
this topic. He originally thought about using the word ‘hate’ to guide the
theme of study, but on reflection, he realised that this could lead into difficulties
of its own. The repetition of such a hard signifier could have unintended
consequences. So he chose ‘segregation’. The meeting on Saturday is the
culmination of 18 months’ work on this subject.
We can pick up the vector of interest
that leads to Saturday’s meeting by thinking back to January 2015 when the attack
on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, and the ensuing attack at the kosher supermarket,
occurred. In November 2016 the annual study days of the École de la Cause
freudienne (ECF) were cancelled because the French Government suspended all
public meetings in Paris following the attack on the Bataclan, the cafes, and
the sports stadium. Camilo was part of the organising committee of those study
days, or Journées, as they are called, so we can begin to see how he is touched
by these events.
The ECF is one of the seven schools of
psychoanalysis that make up the World Association of Psychoanalysis (WAP), and
has about 350 members, mainly in France. The idea of a school of psychoanalysis
is central to the Lacanian orientation and can’t be assumed from anything you
know already about organisation and bureaucracy. The School is a response to
the necessity of forming an organisation but based on the knowledge arising
from psychoanalysis. I won’t go into that here except to say that this contains
the explanation for the invention of a second body called ‘Envers’. Envers
de Paris is made up of people who are members of the ECF plus others. These
others are people who are interested in psychoanalysis, but not necessarily as
a clinical practice. Envers de Paris aims at forging links between
psychoanalysts and people whose working lives are caught up with art,
literature, film, science, law, adolescence, criminology, politics etc. By
creating Envers, members of the ECF
are able to be clearer about the work that makes up the ‘School’ of psychoanalysis,
and the work that is involved in taking an interest in the cultural context of
psychoanalysis. This makes use of the distinction that Lacan made between
psychoanalysis in intension,
and in extension – the
emphasis is placed on ‘tension’.
In Seminar
17 Lacan elaborated his ideas of ‘the four discourses’ and in doing so
demonstrated that the analyst’s discourse: 
is the other side of the master’s discourse:
Briefly, each discourse is
made up of four static places in which four terms revolve.
The master’s discourse is
the one that functions automatically in the unconscious.The discourse of the
analyst provides a possible ‘antidote’ to that. This is the clue to the ‘other side’ that is carried by the name of Envers
de Paris.
I had already bought my tickets, and
registered my place at the study day a couple of weeks ago. I am all set to attend the meeting on Saturday 10 June. The events
of last Saturday, 3 June, at London Bridge make it horribly poignant now. But
together with colleagues and friends, and under the banner of Envers de
Paris, I hope that we can have a
productive conversation (even across our two languages of English and French) about the horrors and the urgencies that face
our cities today.
