January 24 — I. Introduction
January 31 — II. Les trois formes du manque d'objet
February 7 — III. Le signifiant et le Saint-Esprit
February 14 — IV. La dialectique de la frustration
February 21 — V. De l'analyse comme bundling...
February 28 — VI. Le primat du phallus
March 7 — VII. On bat un enfant
March 14 — VIII. Dora
March 21 — IX. La fonction du voile
March 28 — X. L'identification au phallus
April 4 — XI. Le phallus et la mère inassouvie
April 11 — XII. Du complexe d'OEdipe

Reading The Object Relation & Watching Twin Peaks
Non-credit seminar/screening
Led by Stephanie Creaghan, artist and researcher
Winter 2025, Friday 4.00-6.00pm (begins January 24)
LB 681, in person
To enroll, contact creaghan.stephanie@gmail.com

In Jacques Lacan’s fourth seminar, he contends with the object relation proposed by the Société psychanalytique de Paris via Freud’s texts focussing on its absence in order to produce a grounded definition of the theory. Important bases for psychoanalytic concepts of myth-making, along with the elemental Oedipal and castration complexes, and the dialectic of frustration, will be covered by the text. This course will work through the first half of the text, with the caveat of doubling the reading amount each week to finish with the end of semester.

Weekly sessions, which include a moderation session followed by a discussion/exchange, will endeavour to illuminate the psychoanalytic object relation, working through Freud’s texts concerned with its marked absence to bring the theory full circle. After each reading session, we will watch an episode of Twin Peaks in chronological order, with the aim of bringing a Lacanian eye to the illustrious and influential series, rife with split selves, doppelgängers, objects as subjects and the inverse. No prior experience with the subject matter is necessary or expected.