Table Of ContentReturns of the
“French Freud”
Freud, lacan, and beyond
Edited by
Todd Dufresne
returns of the
"french freud"
freud, lacan,
and beyond
returns of the
"french freud"
freud, lacan,
and beyond
edited by
Todd Dufresne
ij Routledge
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LONDON AND NtW tt>RK
Hint published 1997 by Routicdgc
Publijbtd 2013 br Routlodgc
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Dik;^ti: Jack Ehinner
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by any eletfnjnic, methan>cal, or oit*cr m«ns, now known or hrifaltcr invented, including; photo
copying anc recording* or in any iniotmaKm storage or retrieval system without |xrmission m
writing from the puhlidw*-
Libeary tif Congress Caialutgmg-in-f'ubfKatioa Data
Returns of the “French freod’ I |cdited by] Todd Duirts«.
p. an,
todudes bihlic^/aphicil reference*.
I. PsydwiniBlysí—Hiítnry. 1 Freud, j^mund, 1856-193?.
3, Lacan,. Jacques* 1901-1981, 4, Psychoanalysis—Franct
1. Dufreaie, Todii, 1%6-
BF173.R4J2 ]m
150.19‘52'09—iJl20 95-15176
CTP
Publisher’* Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to eiKure «he quality of Ihi* repiint
but points out lit*i some imjmfeetions in the original may be appstenL
ISBN 13: 97H 0415 91525 0 fhbkl
ISBX 13s 97B O 415 9152* 7 I pMk l
contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 Introduction: Beyond the French Freud 1
2 Nietzsche, Freud, and the History of Psychoanalysis 11
Paul Roazen
3 Sublimation: Necessity and Impossibility 25
François Roustang
4 Fear of Birth: Freud's Femininity 35
Kelly Oliver
5 Can the Phallus Stand, or Should It Be Stood Up? 43
Tina Chanter
6 Lacan's Debt to Freud: How the Ratman Paid Off His Debt 67
John Forrester
7 Lacan, Sure—And Then What? 91
Daniel Bougnoux
8 "Mac" 107
Gary Genosko
9 Freud and His Followers, Or How Psychoanalysis 117
Brings Out The Worst in Everyone
Todd Dufresne
10 "To Do justice to Freud": The History of Madness 133
in the Age of Psychoanalysis
Jacques Derrida
11 The Witch Metapsychology 169
Rodolphe Gasché
12 Basta Cosi!: Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen 209
on Psychoanalysis and Philosophy
Interview by Chris Oakley
References 229
Author Index 241
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acknowledgments
A PROJECT OF THIS SORT DEPENDS UPON THE DIRECT AND INDIRECT GOODWILL of many
people. Without the kind support of Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen this collection would
not have materialized. My deepest appreciation to Clara Sacchetti for reading and
correcting parts of the rough manuscript. My thanks also to Tony Greco, Johannes
Mohr, Raymond Dufresne, Kenneth Little, and Paul Roazen for their support and
helpful comments, and to Maureen MacGrogan and the very capable staff at
Routledge. I am indebted to Julian Patrick, Sophie Thomas, John Caruana, and
Charles Dudas for their thoughtful and painstaking works of translation. Most of
all it is my great privilege to acknowledge each of the contributors for their generos
ity towards, patience with, and (compound) interest in this project. Without their
participation this could not, echoing Freud, have become a valuable part of reality.
Parts of this project developed while 1 was funded by a Social Science and
Humanities Research Council grant, and a Queen Elizabeth 11 Ontario Scholarship.
The following contributions first appeared in these journals: Paul Roazen (based
on), “Nietzsche and Freud: Two Voices From the Underground,” The Psychohistory
Review (Spring 1991): 327-49; Daniel Bougnoux, “Lacan oui, et après?” Revue
Esprit (July 1993); Jacques Derrida, ‘“To Do Justice to Freud’: The History of
Madness in the Age of Psychoanalysis,” Critical Inquiry 20, no. 2 (Winter 1994):
227-66; Rodolphe Gasché, “La sorcière méta psychologique,” diagraphe 4 (1974):
83-122.
My thanks, finally, to Peter Swales for sending me a copy of the Freud postcard
to Lacan (8.1.1933), and to Tom Roberts and The Sigmund Freud Copyrights for
allowing its reproduction here: © 1984, A.W. Freud et al, by arrangement with
Mark Paterson & Associates.
—Todd Dufresne, editor
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introduction
beyond the
french
freud
Todd Dufresne
The “French Freud,” carefully erased in quotation marks, no longer
belongs to France alone or to any one personality—assuming that it ever
could have, or did. A term without referent, the “French Freud” has become
a slippery piece of signification beyond the regulative fiction of circuitous return
and reception. Consequently, despite its wide currency today, or perhaps because of
it, it is difficult to demarcate where the “French Freud” begins and/or ends, or even
to know what the phrase means anymore. Rigorously speaking, then, there can be
no return to the “French Freud,” but only multiple re-tums on a diversified invest
ment in thinking psychoanalysis differently.
But however dramatic, necessary, clever, or banal these suggestions may be, we
have not really dispensed with reading and writing about Jacques Lacan in relation
to the “French Freud.” It is not simply that people continue to identify Lacan with or
as the French Freud, having deemed scare quotes superfluous. It is rather that the
wild transmission and reception of Lacan’s work, within France and around the
world, has only helped ensure the continued significance of what passes as French
psychoanalysis. For the spirit of both Freud and Lacan live on precisely to the extent
that their work resists any final systematization or institutionalization. Similarly, the
inevitable erasure of boundaries between the cultures of psychoanalysis, coupled
with the so-called “death of psychoanalysis” in North America and elsewhere, has
only enabled psychoanalysis to proliferate beyond the grip of any founding nation,
school, or personality'.
Returns of the “French Freud” was broadly conceived with this proliferation in
mind and reflects a diversity of interests (or returns) that pass through the elusive
theme of the “French Freud”; exported and commodified, today Lacan’s thought
pervades the intellectual and psychoanalytic worlds. Yet it cannot be easily intro
duced or thematized. To help situate the reader along this difficult and slippery ter
