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(2004) Poststructuralism, philosophy, pedagogy, Dordrecht, Springer.

Lacan, representation, and subjectivity

some implications for education

Stephen Appel

pp. 99-117

There is not much to be gained from classifying Lacan as a structuralist or a poststructuralist; as the introduction to this volume suggests, this terminological divide hides more than it reveals. Lacan's career was a very long one, and his ideas continued to develop until the end. He was deeply influenced by, Saussure, Lévi Strauss, and Jakobson, and their structuralism is present throughout his corpus. Perhaps this is most crucially the case in the importance for Lacan of language, especially the fundamental detachment of language from reality. But, there are also conceptions which are undoubtedly after structuralism per se. Here a crucial notion is Lacan's deconstruction of the subject; far from human beings having an essence of consciousness or being structured into clear conscious and unconscious parts, we are, he said, more like an assemblage of signifiers grouped around a proper name.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/1-4020-2602-1_6

Full citation:

Appel, S. (2004)., Lacan, representation, and subjectivity: some implications for education, in J. D. Marshall (ed.), Poststructuralism, philosophy, pedagogy, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 99-117.

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