Lacan, Discourse, Event: New Psychoanalytic Approaches to Textual Indeterminacy

 Lacan, Discourse, Event: New Psychoanalytic Approaches to Textual Indeterminacy is an introduction to the emerging field of Lacanian Discourse Analysis. It includes key papers that lay the foundations for this research, and worked examples from analysts working with a range of different texts. The editors Ian Parker and David Pavon-Cuellar begin with an introduction which reviews the key themes in discourse analysis and the problems faced by researchers in that field of work including an overview of the development of discourse analysis in different disciplines (psychology, sociology, cultural studies and political and social theory). They also set out the conceptual and methodological principles of Lacan's work insofar as it applies to the field of discourse.

Ian Parker and David Pavon-Cuellar have divided the book into three main sections. The first section comprises previously published papers, some not yet available in English, which set out the foundations for 'Lacanian Discourse Analysis'. The chapters establish the first lines of research, and illustrate how Lacanian psychoanalysis is transformed into a distinctive approach to interpreting text when it is taken out of the clinical domain. The second and third parts of the book comprise commissioned papers in which leading researchers from across the social sciences, from the English-speaking world and from continental Europe and Latin America, show how Lacanian Discourse Analysis works in practice.

Lacan, Discourse, Event: New Psychoanalytic Approaches to Textual Indeterminacy is intended to be a definitive volume bringing together writing from the leaders in the field of Lacanian Discourse Analysis working in the English-speaking world and in countries where Lacanian psychoanalysis is part of mainstream clinical practice and social theory. It will be of particular interest to psychoanalysts of different traditions, to post-graduate and undergraduate researchers in psycho-social studies, cultural studies, sociology and social anthropology.

Review:

"This is a conceptually deep and eminently practical example which combines critical approaches to discourse with Lacanian psychoanalysis, coordinated by researchers who are developing work from Manchester and Morelia that is now being read in Brazil, and bringing together a range of resources of new discursive thought."- Christian Ingo Lenz Dunker, Professor of Psychoanalysis, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil

"Finally an excellent book which addresses the methodological dilemmas of Lacanian Discourse Analysis. The chapters, written by renowned psychoanalysts and scholars from psychology, politics, psycho-social studies and philosophical research, deal with a wealth of textual formats and concrete analyses exploring the tensions between discourse and the event. This collection is a must-read that will become a standard reference point for anyone who, regardless of the domain they work in, is serious about discourse analysis and Lacan." - Alessia Contu, Warwick Business School, The University of Warwick, UK