In his forthcoming Lacan and the Concept of the Real, Tom Eyers argues that “by rooting our understanding of the Real within the logic of the signifier we may begin to recognise the materiality of the immaterial, and the stubborn opacity of the material itself. Lacan’s claim that it is through the signifier that this materiality is revealed to us should not be taken as a concession to any standard brand of anti-realism or hyper-textualism; on the contrary, Lacan’s aim is to render superfluous any neat separation of the ideal from the material, from the representative to that to which it ostensibly refers.” Psychoanalysis thus makes it possible, in a different idiom than deconstruction, to question philosophical binaries like material / ideal and subject / object.
Eyers puts this “weird materialism” to work in his project to rethink the opposition life / structure in contemporary French thought. “Living Structures: Canguilhem, Deleuze, and the Question of Life”, tomorrow 6pm, Gallery 400.
InterCcECT puts it to work in our ongoing Lacan reading group on Seminar 3: The Psychoses. Next up: Chapters 3 and 4, 5pm 14 June, at our salon in Bucktown.
Questions? Proposals? Other materials? Write us!
Be sure to check our calendar on a regular basis for upcoming events like the 16 July book discussion of Adam Kotsko’s Why We Love Sociopaths.
An und für sich 
If only I had the nous to tap into ontological realism directly then the small matter of being on a different continent would be not as big of an obstacle to my attendance of the event. Failing a sudden revelation, is anyone aware if this event and the ones following will be recorded?
Hi Will. We don’t always record, but there was a recording made of Tom Eyers’s talk; it should be posted at interccect.com soon.
Good to know – thanks…
How about AK’s book discussion?
We’d better not be recording that!
I think it should be left up to the host to decide…