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

Plaisir and jouissance. The case of potential and textual reading of Barthes’ theory

The article is an attempt of the analysis and the interpretation of the categories ‘pleasure’ (Fr. plaisir) and ‘delight’ (Fr. jouissance), in the context of philosophically oriented theoretical‑literary considerations of Roland Barthes, sacrificed to the mystery of experiencing of the love. The part first, referring mainly to Barthes’ works, Revognises the range of the semantic field plaisir and jouissance, as categories basic for the textual language of the outstanding theoretician. The second part introduces three examples of western cultural practices which illustrate the manner of use plaisir and jouissance as the factors of textual structures

The Castrated Trustee: Jouissance and Breach of Trust

As a highly prolific legal mechanism that both predated and subsequently found form amid the development of Anglo-American capitalist societies, the modern-day trust operates across manifold private, commercial, domestic and international spheres. As a consequence of their complex legal, economic and political significance that informs, for example, the worlds of global corporate finance as well as public pensions, trusts play a remarkably important role in helping shape the wider socio-cultural domain of Anglo-American jurisdictions and beyond. Yet trusts remain under- or ill-considered juridical sites in terms of continuing critical-legal dialogues, and especially the dialogue between equity and psychoanalysis. This article will explore how the trust mirrors or recreates in an external juridical form the internal regulation of desire and enjoyment that occurs within the psychic space of the subject-as-trustee. In particular, via duties and obligations a trustee holds on behalf of the subject-as-beneficiary, and the resultant breach that is said to occur when such duties and obligations are not met. Using two key formulations this article will aim to assess the trustee as castrated by means of a (re)interpretation and (re)imagination of some fundamental and formal aspects of breach of trust from the perspective of psychoanalysis. The first formulation relates to the continuous force of unconscious desire (the death drive) that pushes the subject-as-trustee ever onwards towards the thing (das Ding) and surplus enjoyment (jouissance), thus producing an (inevitable) affective paradox or trap in which the trustee finds themselves caught. The second, albeit intimately connected with the first, relates to the internal regulatory or prohibitive psychical mechanisms that prevent or seek to prevent the subject-as-trustee from pushing past the limit on enjoyment imposed by the pleasure principle. To be exact, a limit that has been consciously and deliberately recreated in the trust mechanism, and by extension the so-called “onerous” duties of the subject-as-trustee, as a means of preventing a breach of trust

Just doing it: enjoying commodity fetishism with Lacan

Despite prolonged resistance campaigns against what are regarded as unethical production practices of companies such as Nike, people around the world still seem to be happy to spend a lot of money buying expensive consumer products. Why is this so? In this article we discuss this question through the lens of the concept of fetishism. By discussing texts by Freud and Marx, amongst others, we first explore the genealogy of the concept of fetishism. We then develop a Lacanian reading to understand how processes of fetishization dominate today’s capitalist society, producing a modern subject that constantly desires to consume more in order to constitute itself. We argue—with Lacan—that at the heart of this process of the constitution of the subject through consumption is enjoyment or, what Lacan calls, jouissance. Capitalism—as any other socio-economic regime—can thus be understood as a system of enjoyment. </jats:p

The Jouissance of the Torturer in Zero Dark Thirty and the Enjoyment of the Unacceptable

Abstract: In the scene of torture we can see a paradox at work in which the torturer is both sanctioned by positive law and prohibited by oedipal law. This latter prohibition brings the perpetrator into the proximity of, what can be understood as a Lacanian mode of jouissance, an enjoyment that both defies and demands the law. This enjoyment can be seen in the film Zero-Dark-Thirty in which the torturers animate the tortured to, arguably, further their enjoyment and further their goal of/as torture. In these scenes it is the very unacceptability of the breach in oedipal law, coupled with the sanction of positive law – as a command to torture – that makes the act of torture so exciting

Recodifications of academic positions and reiterations of desire: change but continuity in gendered subjectivities

This paper argues that the analysis of changes in the social position of women needs to distinguish between levels of social practice and psychic subjectification. The argument draws on Lacan's conception of the relationship between subjectivity, desire and sexual difference to describe gendered aspects of subjectivity embedded within the (re)organisation of social fields. The data is taken from a comparative case study of undergraduate modules in four universities, and the analysis identifies gendered differences in the tutors? pedagogic and disciplinary practice. These differences suggest that while the practice of the female tutors, in different ways, constituted recodifications of existing disciplinary and pedagogic practices, these instances of recodification can simultaneously be interpreted as gendered identifications with an external, feminine position in relation to the dominant structures of the Symbolic Order. Thus, while change may be instituted at the level of practice within specific social fields, at the level of subjectification the recodifications that mark such changes can be read as a reiteration of primary gendered identifications

“Refashioning Jouissance for the Age of the Imaginary”

The question of jouissance today as reflected in fashion and its changes -- or no changes. They reflect the arrangements and rearrangements between the sexes

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