Towards a sinthomatology of organization?

In this paper I attempt to further the emerging Lacanian-inspired study of management and organization by introducing his notion of the sinthome. The sinthome must be understood as a necessary support of subjectivity rather than a pathological formation. In the Lacanian conceptualization of subjectivity, it enables the registers of the Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real to be knotted together in a specific way,and thereby regulates the distribution of jouissance that takes shape within their ?knot?. Therefore, the sinthome can be thought of as the specific constellation of the registers in a socio-historical context, by organizing jouissance and giving a superficial sheen of consistency to the subject. It reproduces itself in the registers and ensures the superficial coherence of an ideological discourse. I argue that the three functions by which the sinthome reproduces itself in the registers, namely consistency, hole and exsistence,provide a fruitful and novel theorization of how subjectivity, discourse and jouissance are entangled in organizational contexts

Lacan and Organization

239 p.Libro ElectrónicoThe work of Jacques Lacan has become an influential source to most disciplines of the social sciences, and is now considered a standard reference in literary theory, cultural studies and political theory. While management and organization studies has traditionally been preoccupied with questions of making corporations more efficient and productive, it has also mobilized a strong and forceful critique of work, management and capitalism. It is primarily as a contribution to this tradition of critical scholarship that we can see the work of Lacan now emerging.La obra de Jacques Lacan se ha convertido en una fuente de influencia para la mayoría de las disciplinas de las ciencias sociales, y ahora se considera una referencia estándar en la teoría literaria, estudios culturales y la teoría política. Mientras que los estudios de gestión y organización ha sido tradicionalmente preocupado por las cuestiones de lo que las empresas más eficientes y productivos, sino que también ha movilizado una fuerte crítica y contundente del trabajo, la gestión y el capitalismo. Es sobre todo como una contribución a esta tradición de los estudios críticos que podemos ver la obra de Lacan surgiendo.Contributors ix Preface xiii Carl Cederström and Casper Hoedemaekers 1 Lacan and Organization: An Introduction 1 2 Lacan at Work 13 3 Symbolic Authority, Fantasmatic Enjoyment and the Spirits of Capitalism: Genealogies of Mutual Engagement 59 4 The Unbearable Weight of Happiness 101 5 For the Love of the Organization 133 6 You Are Where You Are Not: Lacan and Ideology in Contemporary Workplaces 169 7 Danger! Neurotics at Work 187 8 Lacan in Organization Studies 21

'Work hard, play hard': Fantasies of nihilism and hedonism between work and consumption

This paper aims to interrogate a specific space of transgression that opens up in identity work that spans the life worlds of work and consumption, which can be seen in cultural representations and advertisements that deliberately present themselves as vulgar, sleazy, racist or sexist (or a combination). I argue that this transgressive space is constructed in opposition to the idealized images of work and consumption that shape subjectivities. I will first explore notions of work and consumption, as well as the increasing overlap between work and life. Drawing on Lacanian theory, I then argue that these seemingly rebellious counter-responses can be seen as minor transgressions that do not question but rather support an underlying fantasy of self-actualisation. Based on a reading of an empirical vignette of a specific magazine, I argue that the trangressive gesture in consuming shock media derives its jouissance from a temporary negation of the ego ideal of self-realisation that underlies contemporary modes of being at work and in consumption. The transgressive gesture in consuming the imagery of shock media amounts to the positing of an alternate ego ideal, which takes the shape of the cynical hipster for whom the notion of others? estimation of them is anathema. Work identities are here met with a nihilist indifference to organizational ?committed? selfhood and careerism, while ?authentic? consumer identities are interrupted by an obscene preoccupation with sleaze, hedonism and sarcastic denunciation

Creative work and affect: Social, political and fantasmatic dynamics in the labour of musicians

How can we understand contradictory identifications within work to which one is passionately attached? This article explores how seemingly competing accounts of the self at work can not only appear side by side within the self-presentation of creative workers, but also how dominant patterns within the daily socio-economic realities of creative work are reproduced through faux-contestations of them. Following Glynos and Howarth, I will argue that such transgressive notions often recall earlier historical arrangements that have been displaced by current dominant social grammars, or were vital components of the institution of current social hegemony. In a study of musicians, I analyse how alongside dominant logics of employability and virtuosity, traditional notions of artists’ craft and autonomy drive counter-identifications that allow dominant social logics to fill the gaps in the indeterminacy and ambiguity of everyday lived experience. By applying an understanding of discursive logics to creative work, this article seeks to contribute to literatures spanning work in the cultural industries, identification, affect and transgression at work, and commons and immaterial labour

Коррекция двигательных и поведенческих функций в лечении и реабилитации больных шизотипическим расстройством

На основании особенностей невербального поведения больных шизотипическим расстройством разработаны поведенческие методы, применение которых в их комплексной терапии позволяет добиться более полной редукции психопатологической симптоматики.Behavioral methods were worked out basing of the peculiarities of non−verbal behavior of the patients with schizotypical disorders. The use of the methods in complex therapy allows to achieve more complete reduction in psychopathological signs

Have we seen the geneticisation of society? Expectations and evidence

Abby Lippman’s geneticization thesis, of the early 1990s, argued and anticipated that with the rise of genetics, increasing areas of social and health related activities would come to be understood and defined in genetic terms leading to major changes in society, medicine and health care. We review the considerable literature on geneticization and consider how the concept stands both theoretically and empirically across scientific, clinical, popular and lay discourse and practice. Social science scholarship indicates that relatively little of the original claim of the geneticization thesis has been realised, highlighting the development of more complex and dynamic accounts of disease in scientific discourse and the complexity of relationships between bioscientific, clinical and lay understandings. This scholarship represents a shift in social science understandings of the processes of sociotechnical change, which have moved from rather simplistic linear models to an appreciation of disease categories as multiply understood. Despite these shifts, we argue that a genetic imaginary persists, which plays a performative role in driving investments in new gene-based developments. Understanding the enduring power of this genetic imaginary and its consequences remains a key task for the social sciences, one which treats ongoing genetic expectations and predictions in a sceptical yet open way