The Humanization of Feminine Differentiation and Sinthomic Singularity
A lecture by Prof. Eve Watson
This talk offers a psychoanalysis of contemporary discourse and the social Other and the misogynistic and dehumanizing backlash against the feminine, gender non-conformity, and transness.
Drawing from the work of Lacan, it is proposed that vast field of the feminine and the multiple singularities of gender differentiation trouble the propulsive circuitry of the social bond of market capitalism which prioritises the equivalence of all consumer subjects. As a practice that facilitates the production of new master signifiers and with its emphasis on the sinthome, an extra-symbolic invention that allows a subject to singularly delimit jouissance and enjoy their unconscious, psychoanalysis is positioned against the “alethosphere,” a term Lacan coined for what is now the technosphere, to offer a perspective on its pathological effects. It must however interrogate its own anxieties about gender non-conformity which an emphasis on the sinthome can support.
The Lecturer
Eve Watson is a psychoanalyst, academic, and writer in Dublin, Ireland. She writes on psychoanalysis, sexuality, culture, and film. Her co-edited books include Freud’s Principal Case Studies Revisited: Freudian-Lacanian Psychoanalysts Reconsider the Legacy, Critical Essays on the Drive: Lacanian Theory and Practice, and Clinical Encounters in Sexuality: Psychoanalytic Practice and Queer Theory. She is the academic director of the Freud Lacan institute (FLi), Dublin.
