Bending the Structure: Jacques Lacan Along the Axis of Structuralism and Poststructuralism

Yıl 2022, Sayı: 56, 99 - 112, 05.07.2022

Merve Günday , Erman Kaçar

https://doi.org/10.26650/arcp.1095500

Öz

Lacan wrote and generated ideas at the intersection of structuralism and
poststructuralism, and the question of where he stands in this intersection is crucial to
understand his conception of the subject. This essay takes the multiplicity of views on
Lacan as a structuralist and a poststructuralist as its starting point and aims to weigh
these labels against the background of his specific theories and views. We suggest
that in his early phase when he was categorised as a structuralist, he had the seeds
of his later poststructuralist phase, and when he was generating his poststructuralist
ideas, he was building them on his structuralist legacy. This evolution is similar to that
of Roland Barthes in that he establishes an ongoing dialog between structuralism
and poststructuralism: he is both a threshold figure suggesting an amalgam of
these movements, but he is also a dividing figure as his evolution points at the
unbridgeable rupture between structuralism and poststructuralism. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

Jacques Lacan, Derrida, Saussure, Structuralism, Poststructuralism

Yapıyı Bükmek: Yapısalcılık ve Postyapısalcılık Ekseninde Jacques Lacan

Öz

Lacan’ın düşüncelerinde yapısalcı ve postyapısalcı öğeleri bulmak mümkündür
ve Lacancı özne kavramı ancak Lacan’ın bu ikisi arasında nerede konumlandığının
anlaşılması ile açıklık kazanır. Lacan’ın yapısalcı ya da postyapısalcı olduğuna
dair ileri sürülen farklı düşünceleri çıkış noktası alan bu çalışma, onunla ilgili bu
sınıflandırmaları onun teori ve fikirleri çerçevesinde sorunsallaştırır. Bu çalışmada,
Lacan’ın yapısalcı olarak nitelendirildiği ilk dönemlerindeki kuramsal tartışmalarında
postyapısalcı nüveler barındırırken, postyapısalcı düşüncelerini ürettiği sonraki
dönemlerde ise bu düşüncelerini daha önceki yapısalcı fikirlerine dayandırdığını ileri
sürmekteyiz. Yapısalcılık ve Postyapısalcılık arasında süregelen bir diyalog oluşturması
bakımından Lacan epistemolojisindeki bu değişim Roland Barthes’da gözlemlenen
değişime denktir: Lacan her iki yaklaşımı bir araya getirerek bu iki konum arasında
eşik görevi görürken aynı zamanda, çalışmalarının ilerleyen dönemlerinde görüldüğü
üzere, yapısalcılık ve postyapısalcılık arasındaki uçuruma vurgu yaparak bir ayrışma
noktası da sunar. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

Jacques Lacan, Derrida, Saussure, Yapısalcılık, Postyapısalcılık

Kaynakça

• Attridge, Derek. “The linguistic model and its applications”. In The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Volume 8. From Formalism to Poststructuralism, edited by Raman Selden, 58-84. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008. google scholar
• Birlik, Nurten. “Lacan’s Complicated Relationship with Structuralism”. Ankara University, The Journal of The Faculty of Languages and History-Geography 59, 1 (2019): 529-542. google scholar
• Derrida, Jacques. Writing and Difference. Trans. A. Bass. London: Routledge, 2002. google scholar
• Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minnesota: The University of Minnesota Press, 2003. google scholar
• Evans, Dylan. An Introductionary Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, 2006. google scholar
• Fink, Bruce. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1996. google scholar
• Lacan, Jacques. Desire and Its Interpretation. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book VI. Ed. Jacques Alain Miller. Trans. Bruce Fink. NY: Polity, 2019. google scholar
• ———. Ecrits. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Routledge, 2015. google scholar
• ———. Formations of the Unconscious. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book V. Ed. Jacques Alain Miller. Trans. Russell Grigg. Polity, 2017. google scholar
• ———. On Feminine Sexuality: The Limits of Love and Knowledge. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book XX. Ed. Jacques Alain Miller. Trans. Bruce Fink. Norton & Company, 1999. google scholar
• ———. The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis. Book II, 1954-1955. Ed. John Forrester. Trans. Sylvana Tomaselli. WW Norton & Company, 1988. google scholar
• --. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book III: The Psychoses 1955—1956. Ed. Jacques Alain Miller. Trans. google scholar
• Russell Grigg. New York: WW Norton & Company, 1993. google scholar
• Newton, Kenneth McMillan. Twentieth-Century Literary Theory. Macmillan, 1997. google scholar
• Ryan, Michael. “Marxism and poststructuralism”. In The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: 99108. Eds. Christa Knellwolf and Christopher Norris. Cambridge University Press, 2001. https://doi. org/10.1017/CHOL9780521300148.009. google scholar
• Sarup, Madan. Jacques Lacan. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992. google scholar
• Saussure, Ferdinand De. Course in General Linguistics. Eds. C. Bally and A. Sechehaye. Trans. W. Baskin. Philosophical Library, 1959. google scholar
• Schneiderman, Stuart. Returning to Freud: Clinical Psychoanalysis in the School of Lacan. Ed. & Trans. S. Schneiderman. Yale University Press, 1980. google scholar
• Selden, Raman et al. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. London: Pearson Longman, 2005. google scholar
• Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Translator’s Preface.” In Of Grammatology: ix- lxxxvii. Baltimore: The John Hopkins UP, 1998. google scholar
• Turkle, Sherry. Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud’s French Revolution. NY: The Guilford Press, google scholar