Reading Seminar XX: Lacan's Major Work on Love, Knowledge, and Feminine Sexuality Book

It is hard to rate Reading Seminar XX, which includes some of the same old names that keep turning up in every essay collection from this period. Nonetheless, this book did manage to surprise me - the first three chapters, in particular, are worth the price of admission.

The first of these three outstanding chapters is by Bruce Fink, whose work I normally dislike due to its blandness. However, Fink does an excellent in delineating the split between knowledge and desire in Lacan's theory of subjectivity, and how this evolves from the early period up to Seminar XX. Definitely the best piece by Fink that I have come across.

The second is an essay on hysteria by Colette Soler, whose work I like even less. Soler's chapter is not genuinely groundbreaking, but I thought its discussion of the hysteric and the way it produces knowledge/mastery was really well done.

The third and final essay is by Slavoj Žižek, who articulates the implications of the theory of the "not-all" that appears in Seminar XX. This piece is particularly important for how it anticipates the relationship between Judaism and Christianity that will be explored in The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology.

The rest of the essays in this book, unfortunately, are blandly academic and not of great interest, but these three opening chapters provide some great critical insights into Seminar XX.