Overview

The difficulty of Jacques Lacan's thought is notorious. The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan cuts through this difficulty to provide a clear, jargon-free approach to understanding it. The book describes Lacan's life, the context from which he emerged, and the reception of his theory. Readers will come away with an understanding of concepts such as jouissance, the objet a, and the big Other. The book frames Lacan's thought in the history of philosophy and explains it through jokes, films, and popular culture. In this light, Lacan becomes a thinker of philosophical importance in his own right, on a par with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Lacan's great contribution is the introduction of the unconscious into subjectivity, which results in a challenge to both the psychoanalytic establishment and to philosophers. The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan provides readers with a way of understanding the nature of Lacan's contribution.

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9781009300728

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'Presenting a notoriously obscure thinker with astonishing clarity, McGowan also brilliantly illuminates Lacan in dialogue with philosophical giants like Kant and Hegel. Nothing short of stunning.' Rick Boothby, Professor of Philosophy, Loyola University Maryland

Author Information

Todd McGowan teaches theory and film at the University of Vermont. He is the author of Embracing Alienation (2024), The Racist Fantasy (2022), Emancipation After Hegel (2019), Capitalism and Desire (2019), Only a Joke Can Save Us (2017), and other works. He is also the cohost of the Why Theory podcast with Ryan Engley.

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