Clint Burnham - Lacan and the Environment

Jacques Lacan is one of the most important and influential thinkers of the 20th century. The reach of this influence continues to grow as we settle into the 21st century, the resonance of Lacans thought arguably only beginning now to be properly felt, both in terms of its application to clinical matters and in its application to a range of human activities and interests. The Palgrave Lacan Series is a book series for the best new writing in the Lacanian field, giving voice to the leading writers of a new generation of Lacanian thought. The series will comprise original monographs and thematic, multi-authored collections. The books in the series will explore aspects of Lacans theory from new perspectives and with original insights. There will be books focused on particular areas of or issues in clinical work. There will be books focused on applying Lacanian theory to areas and issues beyond the clinic, to matters of society, politics, the arts and culture. Each book, whatever its particular concern, will work to expand our understanding of Lacans theory and its value in the 21st century.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15116

Cover illustration: Westend61/gettyimages

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is largely the result of LaConference 2018Lacan and the Environmentwhich was organized by the Lacan Salon and held at the Western Front in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the unceded, traditional territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the Squamish (Swxw7mesh xwumixw), Tsleil-Waututh (slilwta) and Musqueam (xmkym) Nations. We are extremely grateful to the Department of English, the Department of Geography, Faculty of Environment, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology at Simon Fraser University. Thank you as well to Derek Hook and Calum Neill for their support for this project, to Beth Farrow and Joanna ONeil at Palgrave for shepherding the manuscript, to Sam Brawand for editorial assistance, and to Alois Sieben for the indexing. Thank you, finally, to our colleagues in the Lacan Salon, which has been an unsettled and jouissance-ridden space for psychoanalytic thinking in Vancouver since 2007.

Lacan and the Environment is todays version of what Hegel called infinite judgment, the assertion of the link between two dimensions which appear totally different. This outstanding volume throws a new light not only on Lacan but also on environmental issues: we cannot really understand ecology without taking into account all the fantasies that overdetermine our approach to this topic.

Slavoj iek, Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities of the University of London, UK

The defining crisis of our time is ecocide. Upending conventional distinctions between exterior and interior, psychoanalysis proves an unexpectedly rich resource for thinking and acting against destruction, displacement, and extinction. These smart, urgent essays consider a broad range of cultural contexts, illustrate the centrality of fantasy, desire, and symbolization to ecological transformation, and should inspire and terrify readers of many stripes.

Anna Kornbluh, Department of English, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA

This brilliant edited volume not only reveals the environment to be an enduring theme in Lacans oeuvre, but also rethinks and reworks Lacan environmentally, showing nature to be a site of both play and anxiety, interiority and radical externality, pleasure and pollution. Our study of the environment will never be the same.

Ilan Kapoor, Faculty of Urban and Environmental Change, York University, Toronto, Canada