The Letter, Issue 37, Summer 2006, Pages i - ii
EDITORIAL
This Summer issue of The Letter brings to the reader an exciting manifold of writings.
We are delighted to be able to publish three further articles originally presented at the Joyce-Lacan Symposium held at Dublin Castle in June last year.
In his article, Rolando Karothy explores the meeting points between the psychoanalyst and the writer and between psychoanalysis and writing. Led to consider an interesting correspondence between Joyce and Lacan, Oscar Zentner ponders the subversion produced by the Joyce effect as affecting Lacan's theoretical tenets and ultimately psychoanalysis. There was only one woman for Joyce, Lacan says. In her piece, Colette Soler variously analyses the position of Nora for Joyce - as 'luggage', as "useless", and as 'fitting him like a glove' before reaching her own conclusion about the woman who did not participate in Joyce's phallic standard.
We are very pleased to publish a second article by Andrew Lewis. The reader may recall Andrew's piece Models of Temporality in Psychoanalysis published in issue 31 of the journal. This time Andrew writes about the presentation of psychoanalytic case histories by the Australian Centre for Psychoanalysis.
Next up, no stranger to these pages, Stephen Costello provides us with his exploration of Freud's political philosophy. In so doing, Stephen's detailed analysis will journey through Freud's important texts of Why War?, Thoughts for the Time on War and Death, and Civilization and its Discontents.
Another frequent contributor to The Letter, Aisling Campbell turns her attention this time to the Borderline Personality Disorder. Aisling discusses at length the notion of the 'border' which together with two very interesting images will be marshalled in support of her argument that many of the difficulties experienced by the 'borderline' and much of her activities are attempts to regulate jouissance.
The next three articles in this issue are the products of an A.P.P.I. seminar held in Dublin in April this year.
At this meeting Ian Parker from Manchester Metropolitan University, member of CFAR and College of Psychoanalysts (U.K.), presented a detailed and innovative examination of 'the lingering problem of how to translate Freud' and of the notion of translation that is operative in the clinic. Let's say that a 'fresh brain' invites us to look at the "fresh brains man"!
Present too in Dublin for the very first time was Kazushige Shingu. We have had the pleasure of publishing two papers of Kazushige's before (see issue 34), so it was a particular pleasure indeed to welcome him here in Dublin. We must thank Ian Parker in this regard as it was Ian who was host to Kazushige's visit to the U.K. and suggested that he might come to Dublin during that time. Kazushige's paper takes us through a Japanese myth and two Buddhist legends (all of which concern the pivotal features of the significance of eating in the process of mourning). He will go on to write about two clinical cases of eating disorders that occurred during the mourning of aborted children in order to consider the homologous relationship between the unconscious and the myth/legend.
Finally, we also had the pleasure in April of the presence of Chris Dunker. Again, we take the opportunity to thank Ian for bringing Chris with him to Dublin! Chris delighted us with an insightful commentary on the papers presented by Ian and then Kazushige. His article here is the text of that commentary. We are also delighted to publish another article by Chris in this 'bumper' issue of the journal on 'style' in Lacan (and so much more as you will see!).
As promised, this issue carries the new Book Review slot. This time around Cathal Morgan reviews Paul Verhaeghe's book On Being Normal and Other Disorders.
May your cup overflow dear reader!
Carol Owens
Editor