Patricia McCarthy – Looking back at On a Discourse that Might not be a Semblance with L’Étourdit in Mind
THE LETTER 63 Autumn 2016 pages 69 – 82
For the past year, our cartel has continued to work on Lacan’s L’Étourdit accompanied by Christian Fierens’ two Readings. To capture some of the questions that these texts provoke,1 I’ve chosen to re-read Lacan’s seminar from 1971 On a Discourse that Might not be a Semblance. This seminar appealed at this time because of its enigmatic title, a title that contains the words discourse and semblance and that seems to take the form of a question – is it possible to have a discourse that might not be a semblance? Lacan himself fashions it more as a negative hypothesis that he answers quite early on. A discourse that might not be a semblance posits that there is no escaping the fact that discourse – master, university or hysterical – is a semblance. In 1971, did Lacan wish that things could be otherwise?
