On this episode, Ryan and Todd continue their series of commentaries on Lacan's Seminars, this time bringing their attention to Seminar XVIII: On a Discourse that Might not Be a Semblance, which was recently published in an official English translation by Bruce Fink for Polity. The hosts work through the stakes and questions of this "morning after" seminar for Lacan's toward the quadratic formulation of the Four Discourses that will define his late work. Ultimately, the hosts see a stark break in the non-relation developed and insisted upon in XVIII from the signifying chain that had defined Lacan's work and thinking up to this point.
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1:15:45
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1:15:45
Voice
In this episode, Ryan and Todd complete their Gaze & Voice duology. While gaze & voice both enter into psychoanalytic theory as objects through Lacan's work at the same time, voice has received less critical attention since. The hosts put voice through a theoretical wringer, analyzing it at the levels of everyday life, aesthetics, and politics. Ultimately, the episode takes up the question of whether and to what extent voice can be mobilized as an emancipatory political concept.
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1:12:07
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1:12:07
Gaze
In this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss one of psychoanalytic theory’s most influential ideas: the gaze. The hosts talk about how Laura Mulvey’s gloss on “the male gaze” made the idea widespread across film theory and cultural studies in different formulations. Yet often missing in these accounts is how the gaze is a challenge to mastery, rather than a confirmation of it. The hosts work through two of Lacan’s examples to this effect, found in Holbein and Velázquez, before offering several of their own as they try to hone in on what makes this idea both evergreen and elusive.
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1:23:57
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1:23:57
Robert Redford
In this episode, Ryan and Todd pay tribute to the recently deceased film actor, director, and producer Robert Redford. Working through dueling top ten film lists, the hosts draw out a political and moral throughline that distinguishes Redford's long career. As the hosts contend, Redford's filmography is defined by an exploration of Kantian moral law and the nonverbal expression of an excess that cannot be named.
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1:41:26
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1:41:26
The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
In this episode, Ryan and Todd conclude their Marx duology by working through the excellent Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. The hosts focus on Marx's narrative and progressive understanding of history as well as the famous notion of repetition expressed in the work's first two lines. The discussion concludes with a critical engagement with Marx's concept of the psyche and the peasantry.
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