Fall 2014 Course Announcement

CONSTRUCTING OEDIPUS (THE DREAM). Place: Euclid Date: Saturday 27th Time: 11:00-1:30pm Frequency: the last Saturday of every month (except Dec. ... to be announced). Instructor: R.T. Groome =========================================================== First Course, Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014 Before returning to where we left off in the Spring 2014 semester with the triad expanded into 4 terms of the Complete Oedipus Complex (mother, father, son, daughter), I will begin with a quote of Lacan " the Oedipus Complex is the Dream of Freud."  To show why this is so, we will begin the first course by reviewing how Freud teaches us to read a dream, then examine the case where he reads his own dream in the Irma Injection Dream in Chpt.II. of The Interpretation of Dreams. Freud then describes a dream as the 'fulfillment of a wish (wünsch)', in Chpt. III, then defines the dream in Chpt. VII (c). Unlike the infinite interpretations that can – and have –   always been given to this dream, our goal is to confirm their veracity with regard to particular cases and topological constructions. Reading for First Course It will be important to have read the Irma Injection Dream (Chpt.II) and as much of Chpt. III and VII(c) as you can before the first course. If you also have time, read VII (a,b) on condensation and displacement.  [At a later time, a second monograph of the instructor R.Groome will be sent out addressing similar but more general questions with regard to the clinic. ] Questions The importance of bringing the Oedipus Complex together with  The Irma Dream is to crack one nut with two stones: What do they have in common? How does an Oedipal Structure correspond to a Dream Structure?  In responding to this question we will return to the structure of triads and the Metapsychological problems that underly both: what is desire? how does it differ from pleasure? what does it mean to speak of 'unconscious motivations'? how do we distinguish desire from demand in both the Dream and the Oedipus?  Freud reads the dream into manifest and latent, can we do so with the Oedipus? Is there a manifest and latent Oedipus? Is a wish a desire or a demand? What is the importance of Freud's auto-interpretations for his psychoanalytic method (noticing that psychology would consider this as an invalid procedure since it is subjective). We will open the course to your various readings of the material, then see if we can come to the SAME conclusions or set of questions in order to set the direction of the Fall 2014 course. ===== Second Course, Oct. 25th, 2014 = In his second Seminar, The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Techniques of Psychoanalysis, Lacan presents the Irma Dream in a structure of Triads in Chpts. 13-14. The problem will be posed is how and why does a problem of identification structure itself as triads in the reading of the Dream and the Oedipus.Though this course will continue to focus on bringing together this double lecture with regard to both Freud and Lacan's text, we will then begin to return to the topological presentations that we concluded with in the Spring of 2014. Topological Problem The problem was left open as to how a binary, (male,female) determines four positions (mm, mf, fm, ff) in a triadic structure of dimensions (of kinship). The problem was also brought out with regard to determining a homologous structure of the binary, (left,right) in three dimensions.  The problem of the mathematical group was posed but left open (though worked on in the 2014 Summer Immersion). Because of the non-intuitive characteristics of the topological presentation of this triadic structure, we have simplified it – without vulgarization – into a coin toss problem on heads and tails in a theory of graphs. Once this simple graph problem is experimentally worked with in the Second and Third Course, then we will return to the higher dimensional problem of sexuation/orientation and extend our presentation to Lacan's work in graph theory in the Purloined Letter (Écrits). We will continue with this problem until the end of the semester in Nov. and Dec. Reading for Second Course: J.Lacan, The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Techniques of Psychoanalysis  Chpts. 13-14 Reading for Third Course J.Lacan, Postface to the Purloined Letter (Fink version in English p.33-48)