Reading Lacan’s Seminar VIII 2020 ORIGINAL PDF

This book provides 18 lively commentaries on Lacan’s Seminar VIII, Transference (1960-61) that explore its theoretical and philosophical consequences in the clinic, the classroom, and society. Including contributions from clinicians as well as scholars working in philosophy, literature, and culture studies, the commentaries presented here represent a wide-range of disciplinary perspectives on the concept of transference. Some chapters closely follow the structure of the seminar’s sessions, while others take up thematic concerns or related sessions such as the commentary on sessions 19 to 22 which deal with Lacan’s discussion of Claudel’s Coûfontaine trilogy.

This book is not a compendium to Lacan’s seminar. Instead it attempts to capture through shorter contributions a spectrum of voices debating, deliberating, and learning with Lacan’s concept. In doing so it can be seen to engage with transference conceptually in a manner that matches the spirit of Lacan’s seminar itself.

Gautam Basu Thakur is associate professor of English at Boise State, USA and author of Postcolonial Theory and Avatar (2015) andPostcolonial Lack (2020) and co-editor of Lacan and the Nonhuman (2018).