The New Lacan Circle Reading Group
Convened by Eugénie Austin
Jacques Lacan, Seminar VII
The Ethics of Psychoanalysis
1959 – 1960
This group has been meeting weekly and continuously since 2020, and we have just begun Lacan’s Seminar on Ethics. There is no fee, we are online, we read out-loud, line-by-line with commentary and discussion, and there is no expectation of prior knowledge.
Weekly on Wednesdays
7:00pm – 8:30pm Melbourne time
Check your local start time here
The recording of our opening session
and introduction to the Seminar, pages 1-4
Wednesday 13 August 2025
is here
“From an analytical point of view, the only thing of which one can be guilty, is of having given ground relative to one’s desire.” Chapter VVIX, The Paradoxes of Ethics, page 319
The themes of Seminar VII
Pleasure and Reality
The Jouissance of Transgression
The Demand for Happiness
Love of One’s Neighbour
Drives and Lures
The Death Drive
Freud’s Das Ding
Sublimation
Moral Law
Courtly Love
The Death of God
On Creation Ex Nihilo
The Function of The Good
The Function of The Beautiful
The Splendour of Antigone
The Moral Goals of Psychoanalysis
The Paradoxes of Ethics
Our text is the English translation of The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII, 1959 – 1960, edited by Jacques-Alain Miller, translated by Dennis Porter and published by Norton in 1992. It is available everywhere including from Amazon here
Contact the convenor Eugénie Austin with any queries here
Register below for the permanent Zoom link to participate
and/or to receive the recordings and reminders
Lacan Circle Reading Group: Ethics
Privacy statement: These meetings will be audio and video recorded and live broadcast through Zoom. When registering you agree to the collection and processing of your personal data, and on the publication of the audio and video recordings and/or stills.
Painting by Angelo Bronzino, The Descent from the Cross, 1545, detail
Visit our previous Reading Group (Seminar VI, Desire) here
Our home page is here