As I was looking for some ending thoughts for my seminar paper, I stumbled upon a riveting analysis of le sinthome – my latest and absorbing issue – here. paramodern studies claims – referring to Paul Verhaeghe and Frederic Declercq that the subject is called Lacanian Neosubject if he:
“tries to come and go with the Real of the jouissance
dictated by its own drive, without falling back into the previous trap of stuffing it full of signification”
This helped establish a point in my discussion of the sinthomatic subject in the comic adaptation of Paul Auster’s “City of Glass”, apoint where further inquires can be made. Daniel Quinn, at least I believe, is the Lacanian Neosubject as he subordinates himself with his on his sinthome (i.e writing), stemmed from a trauma and unconsciously identifies himself with detective Paul Auster. The essay, entitled “Empty texts: The Lacanian (con-) textualization of the a-chiasmatic logic of the sinthomatic subject in the comic book adaptation of Paul Auster’s „City of Glass”(1994). This paper dealsi with the one-way misidentification.
There is something mysterious in le sinthome: it is an effect of the Real that haunts us from the outside. As being transferred from the Real in it symptomatic form, the effect of le sinthome is what connects the subject to his fantasy, that is we can enjoy our fantasies through the symptomatic joussaince.(more precisely, the joussaince of the symptom). Then, the symptom is thought from the fantasy.
That is, we are bound to the primacy of our sinthome (∑), as Jacques Alain Miller put it in “The Sinthome, a Mixture of Symptom and Fantasy”. So, my question is quite simple: how is it possible that an Order of such importance resists to verbalization, or description?
Sometimes I just can’t help noticing phenomena that could be mere coincidences. For instance, if a mediocre movie called Number 23 makes me realize that it is a manifestation of a Lacanian-Joycean interpretation of le sinthome. As soon as I realized that the Baader Meinhof phenomenon is present when I talk about the movie and the sinthome (FYI it was Lacan’s 23rd Seminar, where he dealt with this Order), it suddenly struck me: isn’t it just the same proble Joyce was involved in, or what the notebooks connote for Paul Auster?
The movie may uncounsciously play with the breakdown of the external self-representing/defining mediums that constitute and guarantee the subject’s coherence. With Joyce, these mediums are veiled so psychoses was to be avoided, but the more interesting part in the movie is that they’re not hidden anymore: as our hero realizes his trauma that actually haunted him in the form of nightmares or in a certain number; so this trauma is revealed and the Symbolic veiling is shattered.
On the other hand, the character,played by Jim Carrey wants to identify himself with the main hero from the book, entitled“Number 23″, which is the opposite case as in the example of Joyce.
Recently, I’ve found myself quite getting more immersed into the genre of the so-called post-rock. Two names are worth mentioning: God Is An Astronaut and my favourite one: Russian Circles. Their songs are usually instrumental with some catchy metal riffs.
In her text, The Speaking Subject, Kristeva analyzes the two Orders that constitutes the (speaking) subject en procés. Her approach to visualize her two modalities (Semiotic and Symbolic) is to call Thom’s Catastrophe Theory to help. This theory is a part of the so called bifurcation theories and supposes that “all structures are the result of the interaction of two communicating spaces; spaces, however, which do not obey the same laws.”
The Semiotic – the quasi-dimension of the Lacanian Real and Imaginary- and the Symbolic are thus the constitutives of the subject and – I believe – can be visualized by the Lorenz attractors.
These are governing us together and this dynamic construction is what co-ordinates our mental “space”.
Philip K. Dick – as we are advancing in time – is more likely to be seen as a visionary, or someone with great imagination. A recent reading of mine Dr. Bloodmoney includes the character of Hoppy Harrington, who suffers from focomelia, a congenital disorder affecting the limbs. Now the story revolves around an atomic catastrophe, which divides the book into a pre- and a postatomic part. In the second part of the book Hoppy manages to boost his physical abilities by incorporating mechnical devices into his biological body, which results in a transhuman body. The transhuman body is everything that can enhance your natural (God-given?) abilities.
Transhumanism, as a concept, does exist in contemporary science oand philosophy. The H+Magazine deals with this concept and the provide digital editions of their journals. An issue of their magazines can be downloaded by clicking on the mag cover.
Before the Oscar-related thread (which has to wait until I watch Slumdog Millionaire), let’s focus on the pessimism that characterizes the subject as such. The basis of such a pessimistic view is to be found at the very moment of méconnaisance in the mirror phase and later when we enter into the Symbolic, getting sutured into the realm of language, which of course provides us the illusion that we are able to master it. But beneath the very structure of our being there is a void around which we are structured around in the Symbolic, which keeps us from knowing ourselves fully, in the same way language keeps us from verbalizing our true intentions. We cannot utter what we want properly, but we need language anyway. This is the basic logic of psychoanalysis, what Žižek refers to as Coincidentia oppositorum in Television. The oppositions coincidentically unite.
Moreover, what Kaja Silverman states [i.e the (Lacanian) subject is like a narrative] is a bright “manifesto” of the beforementioned pessimism, as with the narrative we are in the “prison house of language” á la Jameson.
The Lacanian psychoanalysis is quite intermedial/interdiscliplinary, thus we might have to reflect on it from such a multiple POVs. But with the misrecognition of ourselves in childhood, we experience the same in our artificial circumstances that are ideologically prefabricated for us.
Talking about the notion of adaptation is a helluva thing to do. At least this is what I learnt from one of my previou courses I had on Film Adaptation. Anyway, this was the topic of last week’s event, which was held at REÖK. We had the chance to see Dragon Zoltán (Institute of Amercan Studies, SZTE), Dettre Gábor (director) and Balogh Bálint (head of the Szobaszínház), discussing the beforementioned issue. Although, thousands of books have already been written on adaptation, I must say that this “marriage” (á la Robert Stam) is almost impossible to fulfill the utopistic vision of perfect adaptation. This is because there are obstacles originated by the otherness of each genre. No film can envision my previous reading experience, that is why it will never happen. I mean the perfect adaptation.
The forum was not successful concerning the original topic, maybe because the guests analyzed the topic from numerous POVs and the time was not enough? (Nope, my inner sarcastic self says this was because it is impossible to talk about adaptation. So what the fuss.)
It’s been a while since i wrote here. Anyway, AMERICANA, the E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary published my review on Michel Chion’s book Eyes Wide Shut, which you can read here or download.
Sometimes I just can’t help noticing phenomena that could be mere coincidences. For instance, if a mediocre movie called Number 23 makes me realize that it is a manifestation of a Lacanian-Joycean interpretation of le sinthome. As soon as I realized that the Baader Meinhof phenomenon is present when I talk about the movie and the sinthome (FYI it was Lacan’s 23rd Seminar, where he dealt with this Order), it suddenly struck me: isn’t it just the same proble Joyce was involved in, or what the notebooks connote for Paul Auster?
visionary, or someone with great imagination. A recent reading of mine Dr. Bloodmoney includes the character of Hoppy Harrington, who suffers from focomelia, a congenital disorder affecting the limbs. Now the story revolves around an atomic catastrophe, which divides the book into a pre- and a postatomic part. In the second part of the book Hoppy manages to boost his physical abilities by incorporating mechnical devices into his biological body, which results in a transhuman body. The transhuman body is everything that can enhance your natural (God-given?) abilities.
Before the Oscar-related thread (which has to wait until I watch 
It’s been a while since i wrote here. Anyway, 
