Ecrits: Selection, A

Description: Genius and charismatic leader of a psychoanalytic movement that in the 1950s and 1960s provided a focal point for the French intelligentsia, Jacques Lacan attracted a cult following. Ecrits is his most important work, bringing together twenty-seven articles and lectures originally published between 1936 and 1966. Following its first publication in 1966, the book gained Lacan international attention and exercised a powerful influence on contemporary intellectual life. To this day, Lacan's radical, brilliant and complex ideas continue to be highly influential in everything from film theory to art history and literary criticism. Ecrits is the essential source for anyone who seeks to understand this seminal thinker and his influence on contemporary thought and culture. Review: 'Lacan's work marks a crucial moment in the history of psychoanalysis, a moment which will perhaps prove as significant as Freud's original discovery of the unconscious.' - Colin MacCabe 'Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Georges Bataille had often urged Lacan to publish the text of his seminars: the influence of his teaching can be observed in works by Maurice Blanchot and Michel Foucault... in Roland Barthes's studies on semiology and Louis Althusser's 'reading' of Marx. But it can be felt still more basically [in] the current revival of interest in psychoanalysis... the desire for a return to origins which is a common factor in so many avenues of modern thought.' - The Times Literary Supplement Author Biography: Jacques Lacan (1901-1981). Psychoanalyst and critical thinker.