Ecrits: A Selection [Paperback]

Jacques Lacan (Author), Bruce Fink (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2004

A major new translation of one of the most influential psychoanalytic works of modern times.

Brilliant and innovative, Jacques Lacan's work has had a tremendous influence on contemporary discourse. Lacan lies at the epicenter of contemporary discourses about otherness, subjectivity, sexual difference, the drives, the law and enjoyment. Yet his seemingly impenetrable writing style has kept many a reader from venturing beyond page one. This new translation of selected writings from his most famous work offers welcome access to nine of his most significant contributions to psychoanalytic theory and technique. Ranging from "The Mirror Stage" to "The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious," and including "The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis" and other papers on various aspects of psychoanalytic theory and practice, this selection spans some thirty years of Lacan's inimitable intellectual career.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

French psychoanalyst Lacan (1901-81) has generated more excitement in cultural studies and literature than in psychoanalysis. Known as a brilliant but confusing commentator, he borrows freely from many disciplines, using analogy, metaphor, self-contradiction, and other provocations with reader-be-damned flamboyance. This is the first volume in a new English translation of Lacan's landmark crits (1966), which comprises 29 major texts and six introductions and appendixes. Herein, Lacan discusses nine facets of his psychoanalytic theory and technique. He claims that the unconscious is structured like a language and is known for his theory of the "mirror stage" in child development. Those who want to decide for themselves whether to praise or bury Lacan need look no further than this careful translation by Fink (psychology, Duquesne Univ.; A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis), which belongs primarily in academic collections. Intelligent lay readers will be able to grasp some of the text, but they will need additional assistance, e.g., Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen's Lacan: The Absolute Master, a rich and relatively accessible overview by a native French speaker, and Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont's Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science, which devotes a chapter to Lacan's misuse of mathematics.
E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, DC
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

'Lacan's work marks a crucial moment in the history of psychoanalysis, a moment which will perhaps prove as significant as Freud's original discovery of the unconscious.' - Colin MacCabe 'Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Georges Bataille had often urged Lacan to publish the text of his seminars: the influence of his teaching can be observed in works by Maurice Blanchot and Michel Foucault... in Roland Barthes's studies on semiology and Louis Althusser's "reading" of Marx. But it can be felt still more basically [in] the current revival of interest in psychoanalysis... the desire for a return to origins which is a common factor in so many avenues of modern thought.' - The Times Literary Supplement --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (January 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393325288
• ISBN-13: 978-0393325287
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #344,285 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) was one of the twentieth century's most influential thinkers. His many published works include Ecrits and The Seminars.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Essential Translation, November 23, 2002

By 

stephen_carroll (Central West NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Ecrits: A Selection (Hardcover)

The experience of reading Lacan can be difficult for some, if not most of us; his work requires us to be active in our comprehension and imagination. For many years there has only been one translation of this important work, which has hampered Lacan's introduction to the Anglophone world. We now have a new translation and splendid it is! It does not give instant access to Lacan and the book still needs "active" reading, but it certainly helps. This modern translation - worked on by three people close to the work of Lacan - is fully annotated and referenced to give the reader a complete entry into the work as composed at the time (a hermeneutics of Lacan, perhaps?). We have many books about the work of this important psychoanalyst and thinker - but eventually the desire comes to read his original work and this translation certainly allows, supports and encourages this. This translation of the Ecrits will prove valuable for many years to come. Congatulations need to go to Fink, Fink and Grigg for their excellent work.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a major achievement, September 7, 2005

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Hadrian VII "jp" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ecrits: A Selection (Paperback)

Bruce Fink's translation of Ecrits is sure to supplant Sheridan's translation as the most eminently readable and comprehesive rendering of Lacan in English. Having worked with both translations as well as the original French, I can say with confidence that the 2002 translation is superior in almost every respect, and I anxiously await the full translation of the Ecrits (an incredible accomplishment, to be sure) later this year.

31 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars If you want to read Lacan...Forget "Ecrits", November 8, 2002

By 

R. Matthews (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ecrits: A Selection (Hardcover)

If you want to read Lacan, forget all the confusing introductions by people like Zizek, Gallup et al. and absolutely don't bother with "Ecrits"--what you'll find there are dense rewritings of earlier speeches. Lacan was never a writer, he was a talker. And when he re-wrote his talk (ironically retitled as "Ecrits"), he packed years worth of insights into those pages. For those who already know his talk, the so-called "Seminars", "Ecrits" is a revelation. But for the neophyte, it can only bring frustration (hence an industry of "introductory" books I've told you to avoid). Instead of "Ecrits" then, begin where it all began...the Seminars, Paris, the 1950s where a who's-who of Paris intelligentia sit in to listen to the new kid on the block with his intriguing new back-to-basic reading of Freud. Actual transcriptions from his classes, they read like plays as Lacan interacts with his class. And like any teacher he begs his students to do only one thing: their homework! If he's going to talk about a particular essay by Freud, he expects you to read it. You also get group presentations by the students, question and answers and Lacan's facicious wit. Great fun. Seminars 1-3 are a breeze but beware, not all the volumes have been translated (nor transcribed--unpublished "bootlegs" can be found in Paris of seminars not yet in print and counter-volumes contesting the "standard" volumes' reliability in regards to the transcriptions). Seminar 4 will be out soon and 7 has been around for awhile. However, by Seminar 11 they become dense, dense, dense.