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The Problem Of the Body
What follows is an edited version of a talk delivered on July 12, 2014, at the annual CFAR Conference. The theme this year was: "Sexuality: Phantasy, Discourse and Practice". I participated in a panel on the general subject of "Sexuality and Phantasy". My presentation was not prepared beforehand. This here is an edited transcription of a recording. As such, it tries, but fails in many ways, to capture the spontaneity and informality of what was said. But then, that's the best I could do.
I was wondering how to start today. I was considering the title of the panel, "Sexuality and Phantasy", and struggled to think. What, if anything, could I add to the subject?
I realised this. I realised that whenever I find myself thinking about Sexuality, I find myself thinking of Descartes --you know, René Descartes, the philosopher.
Of course Descartes did not, as far as I know, write about sexuality as such --or about phantasy for that matter. But he did write about the mind-body problem.
This will be my starting point today.
What is real in a historical event?
This is a slightly edited transcription of a talk I delivered on April 5, 2014, at the "Workshop in preparation of the WAP Congress" of the London Society of the NLS. The theme of the congress is "A Real for the 21st Century". The Workshop, organised by Janet Haney, was structured around four entries from the upcoming English version of Scilicet. Each was presented by a member or friend of the London Society who participated in the process of translation and editing. My talk was in connection to "Shoah", a paper by French psychoanalyst Philippe Benichou.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today here about some of the questions I found myself struggling with, while reading and translating "Shoah" by Philippe Benichou.
Benichou's paper talks about the Shoah. You cannot wonder, Benichou writes, what a "real for the twenty-first century" could be, without mentioning that event beyond meaning, real, all too real, the Shoah.
I was captivated but also puzzled by the power of this depiction of the Shoah as an "event beyond meaning, real, all too real".
I asked myself, what could this mean?
Attempting to formulate an answer, I found myself faced with further questions:
What is an event? What is history? What is a historical event?
And then: What is real in a historical event?
This is how I will begin.
This is the blog of
Christos Tombras
a psychoanalyst practising
in North West London.
For a list of all posts,
Body Mind Dichotomy
Discourse Ontology
Falsification Criterion
Hard Sciences
Health Professions Council
Lanzmann
Measuring Effectiveness
Medical Model
Oedipus Complex
Phantasy
Randomized Control Trials
Regulation Of Psychotherapy
Signifier
Ukcp
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