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LACANIAN COMPASS NEW HAVEN

Reading Clinic 2026/27

FANTASMATIC SCENARIOS Reading Lacan’s Seminars VI & XIV

In common language, ‘fantasy’ refers to a daydream or unreal mental image. It is a signifier Freud adopted and elaborated from his practice and Lacan further developed it, observing the function of what he called the “fundamental fantasy” in the life of the subject. Though these terms maintain their relevance in psychoanalytic discourse and practice, language is not static. It changes, and our orientation attends to these changes in the teachings of Freud, Lacan, and Miller, but also in our contemporary practice and culture.

“Fantasmatic Scenarios” is a new articulation that encompasses multiple aspects of the role that fantasy plays for the speaking body. As a guide, it will allow us to consider the fantasy—its formulation, ruptures, and traversal—in different moments over the course of an analysis.  In his presentation of this theme for the upcoming 2027 NLS Congress, Éric Zuliani poses the question: “If the fantasy takes on such importance at the end of an analysis when we speak of its traversal, in what form does it present itself in the course of analytic work, and what is its function?”

Jacques Lacan’s Seminars VI and XIV, Desire and Its Interpretation and The Logic of Fantasy, are two important landmarks for our research on the NLS theme this year. Our reading of these seminars will be supported and accompanied by other texts by Freud, Lacan, Miller, and others.

  • Time: Mondays at 7:30-9pm; September 14, 2026 through June 7, 2027
  • Location: 817 Grand Ave, Ste 102, New Haven, CT 06511
  • Modality: In person only.
  • Participation: Free & open.
  • Program: The reading program will be presented monthly on the Lacanian Compass program page.
  • Contact: To participate, write to Jeff Erbe at jeffrey.erbe@gmail.com

Key References:

Lacan J. (2015). Desire and its interpretation, The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VI, (J.-A. Miller, Ed.; tr. B. Fink, Trans.). Polity. (Original work delivered 1958-1959).

Lacan J. (2026). The logic of fantasy, The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XIV, (J.-A. Miller, Ed.; tr. B. Fink, Trans.). Polity. (Original work delivered 1966-1967).

Zuliani, É. (2026, July). NLS Congress 2027: Presentation of the theme. New Lacanian School. https://www.amp-nls.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/ENG-Eric-Zuliani-Congress-Presentation.pdf.

PROGRAM

9/14/26

Gorostiza, L. (2020, May). The Lacanian orientation – Clarifying the abruptness of the real. ICLO-NLS Scríobh Issue 7. https://iclo-nls.org/wp-content/uploads/scriobh_007.pdf.

Zuliani, É. (2026, July). NLS Congress 2027: Presentation of the theme. New Lacanian School. https://www.amp-nls.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/ENG-Eric-Zuliani-Congress-Presentation.pdf.

9/21/26

Freud, S. (1955). “A child is being beaten”: A contribution to the investigation of the origin of sexual perversions. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 17, pp. 175–204). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1919).

Freud, S. (1964). Constructions in analysis. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 23, pp. 255–270). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1937).

9/28/26

Miller, J.-A. “Presentation of Book VI of the Seminar of Jacques Lacan.” Hurly Burly 10, 2013, 33-47.

Miller, J.-A. “The Other without Other.” Hurly Burly 10, 2013, 15-29.