Dr. Dan Collins: An Introduction to Lacan's Seminar XXIV: Love Is the Failure of the Unbewoops

Dr. Dan Collins presents an Introduction to Lacan's Seminar XXIV: Love Is the Failure of the Unbewoops.

In this lecture, Dr. Dan Collins joins Rendering Unconscious Center for Psychoanalysis to discuss his English translation of Jacques Lacan’s Seminar XXIV, which he titles, Love Is the Failure of the Unbewoops. Dr. Collins will be introduced by Dr. Jessica Datema, a professor of Literature and Philosophy, who will be co-facilitating the study group Reading Lacan's Seminar XXIV with Dr. Vanessa Sinclair for RU Center for Psychoanalysis. 

Lacan's original title, L’insu que sait de l’une-bévue, s’aile à mourre, is famously complicated to translate. Collins writes, "Some have made efforts to translate this title into English piece by piece as a kind of calque. These efforts have been unsuccessful because translating the punning, idiosyncratic written title into English is not the point of the exercise. Lacan’s title, it seems, is an elaborate attempt to show how the unconscious is structured like a language, or like lalangue. His strategy is to take the unconscious, latent content of the title, which relies on writing and elaborate wordplay, and make it manifest, that is, to make it the written title of the seminar. What would normally be the manifest content, the homophonic sentence L’insuccès de l’une-bévue, c’est l’amour, is here latent and must be retrieved."

This volume is a translation of the authorized French text of Seminar 24, as edited by Jacques-Alain Miller and published in the journal Ornicar? As of this date, the seminar has not been published in French in book form.

Join us online Saturday, October 24th at 10:30AM NYC (7:30AM Los Angeles/ 3:30PM London/ 16:30 Stockholm/ 17:30 Beirut) for 90 minutes. We will have plenty of time for questions and discussion.

This event will be recorded and made available for all those who register.

Dan's Introduction will set us up nicely for what we’re diving into next: a close reading of Lacan's Seminar XXIV, beginning Saturday, November 21st. To register for the study group simply become a paid subscriber at RU Center for Psychoanalysis. 

Dr. Dan Collins is the founding member of Affiliated Psychoanalytic Workgroups, USA. He lives, teaches, and practices psychoanalysis in Buffalo, NY, USA. For ten years, he was the Education Director at Lacan Toronto where he led a highly regarded annual seminar. He has published numerous articles on a variety of psychoanalytic subjects and is the co-editor of a recent book Critical Essays on the Drive: Lacanian Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2024) with Eve Watson. His newest book is Lacan on the Road: A Guide to His Talks, Lectures, and Interviews Away from the Seminar, forthcoming from the Palgrave Lacan Series.

Dr. Jessica Datema, a professor of Literature and Philosophy at Bergen Community College. She received a PhD in Comparative Literature and an MA in Philosophy at SUNY Binghamton University. She also received a creative writing certificate for studies accomplished at the University of Cambridge. Her publications include multiple articles, and edited collections entitled: Wretched Refuge (2010), Revisioning War Trauma in Cinema (2019), and Movement, Velocity and Rhythm from a Psychoanalytic Perspective (2023). Her latest article entitled Serial Ripley is about psychoanalysis and Steven Zaillan’s miniseries adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel. Dr. Datema is Book Review Editor, Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society (PCS)

This event is hosted by Rendering Unconscious Center for Psychoanalysis