Thursday, March 31, 2005
(1:54 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
An announcement, then an idea
John Holbo has inaugurated a new blog, entitled The Valve. By my count, I am the 500th person to point this out, entitling me to a door prize. I am glad to see that someone has had the good sense to snatch up Amardeep Singh and Dan Green for the purposes of a group blog.My idea is as follows. I am currently reading Lacan's Seminar on The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, which is suprisingly not difficult. I find that he makes reference to many different books and ideas (spreading the seed of the intellect, as one could say) that it would be productive to follow up on -- except that I'm already reading a book (viz. Lacan's Seminar...). Why not, then, have some kind of blog based on following up on Lacan's Seminar or something like it? Each week or two, start on the next session, pick out the works that Lacan is referring to and combining, and see what actually happens when you combine them. For instance, is it actually helpful to combine Kierkegaard's Repetition with Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle? I suspect it would be helpful, but for now I'm just taking Lacan's word for it. It doesn't have to be that way, though, because there could be a blog where people would sit down, read Kierkegaard and Freud, flag the relevant passages, and hash it out. Even more helpful: do one of the seminars that's not been translated yet, and assign people to translate a given section. They're usually 10-12 pages, so even though it's Lacan, you could produce a usable draft in a week or so. All of this depends heavily on people having infinite time, of course. In principle, though, it seems like a cool idea.
