The Lacan Circle of Australia
Cartel Presentation Day

This event was held in June 2023
You may request the Zoom recording, below

We heard two talks from the work of two cartels

Claire Baxter
Formations of the Unconscious Cartel
Why the tapestries? Lacan’s specular image in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon

Wives who kill.

In the oldest known trilogy of literature, Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Clytemnestra welcomes home her victorious warrior husband, Agamemnon – and kills him in the bathtub. Before, however, this desperate housewife turns the bathwater red, she insists that Agamemnon walk upon the wine red tapestries that she lays out especially for him. Why? Why does Clytemnestra orchestrate this spectacular blood red image before she commits the act?

Drawing upon Lacan’s idea of the specular image, this paper considers an intergenerational interpretation of Schema L, and the importance of the imaginary as a precursor to the passage à l’acte.

Stu Hatton
Four Discourses Cartel
The four discourses, and some preliminary remarks on pathological demand avoidance

In Seminar XVII, Lacan outlined his four discourses of the master, the hysteric, the university, and the analyst. How might these discourses map onto autism, autistic subjectivity, and the proposed sub-type of autism known as Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)?

Lacan Circle Cartels are open to anyone interested in contemporary psychoanalysis and we hold these presentation days twice each year. Visit our information page for more details here. Register below to request the recording of this event.

Privacy policy: This meeting was audio and video recorded and live broadcast through Zoom. Those present agreed to the collection and processing of their personal data, and the publication of the audio and video recordings and stills.

Thank you for your interest in psychoanalysis and your support of the Lacan Circle

Our end-of-year cartel presentation day will be held on 4 November 2023 and the details are here
Visit our cartel information page here
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Image by Kevin Abanto, Architecture of Blood