My point of departure is that the true centrality of jouissance and its problematic disjunction from the symbolic was not recognized until the advent of the Freudian-Lacanian field. Lacanian psychoanalysis is a radical movement through and beyond signifiers to the real of drive and jouissance. For the late Lacan, it is only on this level that meaningful change can be effected in the human being. This is a revolutionary reversal compared to certain past religious and philosophical attitudes towards passion and it has important implications for how we view and evaluate our humanistic texts of the past and how we promote the humanities in the future.

Keywords

• Lacan
• Jouissance
• Language
• Real
• Drive
• Humanities

Person as Subject

• Lacan, Jacques

(30 min Conference Paper, English)