LCNY Seminar 2026/2027
What is the real? This provocative question will open the 2026/2027 LCNY Seminar, which will begin in October 2026 and continue through December 2027.
The question gives its title to the first text we will read: The Experience of the Real in Psychoanalysis (Le réel dans l’expérience analytique), Jacques-Alain Miller’s annual course from 1998–1999, part of his broader project of Lacanian Orientation, developed through his yearly courses between 1972 and 2011.
Miller begins his course with this fundamental question but does not offer a definitive answer in the first lesson. Instead, throughout the seminar, he explores the different ways in which the real manifests itself in psychoanalysis: the symptom, jouissance, object a, lalangue, the non-rapport, the body event, the real unconscious, and the sinthome.
One of the central interests of Miller’s approach is the dialogue he establishes between the early and late Lacan. Through this movement, he demonstrates how Lacan progressively develops a new conception of embodiment and of the relationship between the subject, the body, language, and jouissance.
The Lacanian concept of the real is not equivalent to reality. Rather, it points toward that which resists being fully captured or articulated within discourse. Yet Miller shows that the relationship between the signifier and the real is not simply one of opposition. Through jouissance, they enter into a new and decisive alliance.
During the 2026/2027 LCNY Seminar, participants will have the opportunity to read and discuss the lessons from Miller’s course that have been translated and published in English, following the development of his reflections on the real and its place in Lacanian psychoanalysis.