Laytour, Latetour, L'Etourdit

This paper introduces L'Etourdit by first examining the places where Lacan taught – St. Anne, ENS, Sorbonne – as important places for him and meriting an introductory tour for non-Parisian readers of the text. They are shown to be given theoretical weight by the role of “place” in the four Discourses and the four Formulae of Sexuation which Lacan had produced in the preceding years, and the author draws on Christian Fierens' Reading L'Etourdit as an invaluable aid to resolving the text's many enigmas.…