Dear Professor Grossman,
Thank you so much for clarifying. I certainly agree with you about Lacan's
theorizing the subject as the medium of intersubjectivity and as a
signifier for another signifier. My sense, though, is that the Althusserian
notion of interpellation into what Althusser calls ideological state
apparatuses is close to Lacan's notion of imaginary identification, not
entry into the symbolic. Those apparatuses consist of what the late
Foucault calls "discursive formations," sets of what some of us refer to as
"cultural beliefs." In Lacan's terms, those are captations, signifieds,
constituents of the imaginary, not the symbolic. The entry into the
symbolic is an entry into the order of the signifier, of the linguistic and
other structures undergirding desire and the unconscious. The "nom/non," as
I understand Lacan, is not, as it is taken to be, for instance by Butler,
but also in general in circles of Anglo-American literary criticism,
prohibition, but negativity, lack, desire. Otherwise, this "non" too would
be Althusserian, Foucauldian, imaginary. And the psychoanalytical
imperative is for us to engage, with precision, in the seductions of the
symbolic.
thanks again, and my very best to you,
Dr. Shirley Sharon-Zisser
Tel Aviv University
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