Lacan’s Oriental Language of the Unconscious

Purloined Lacan

During one of his infrequent visits to the United States in the late 1970s, Jacques Lacan attended a summer conference at Columbia University… Lacan was delighted by his day at the Met and perhaps returned to Paris with his hostility toward the United States somewhat diminished. Lacan would seem to be the empty signifier of this récit, like the letter in his seminar on Poe’s short story, “The Purloined Letter.” While in New York Lacan believes himself to be Lacan, even orders his three hosts to refer to him as such: “Dites-leur que je suis Lacan.” The Director of the Met, on the other hand, believes Lacan to be Jean-Paul Sartre, and although this is the guest whom one dares not name, the director talks around Lacan/Sartre’s significance, attempting to define the visitor by linking him with another signifier, Simone de Beauvoir, when a more appropriate signifier might be Sylvia Bataille. Tytell’s unenviable task is to regard and present Lacan as both Lacan and Sartre and neither Lacan nor Sartre.