Psychoanalysis, Representation, Politics

The definition of 'government' has been re-interpreted by the conference organisers to include issues of representation in general. I should like to stretch this interpretation a little further, if I may, to include questions of politics. Politics, that is, in its broadest sense, and not specifically cultural politics, in other words, the politics of representation, of identity and of subjectivity, or, more locally the politics of psychoanalysis. What I want to address, therefore, will encompass questions of cultural and social theory as well as issues specific to psychoanalytic studies.…