Abstract

*Shortlisted for the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book Prize, 2016*

The wide-ranging and brilliant ideas of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) have had a major influence on modern thought. His 'followers' are loyal and legion. Yet his ideas are complex and densely conveyed. Lacan's detractors have accused him of obscurantism, pretentiousness and even incoherence, his psychoanalytic practice and his personal life were complicated - he was famous and contentious in equal measure.

Martin Murray provides a lucid account of Lacan's key concepts, including the mirror stage, and his relationship to Freud's ideas, amongst many others. Tracing their origins in his diverse interests: art, psychiatry, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics and psychoanalysis. Murray also investigates Lacan's professional life, personal life and institutional influence in an attempt to understand the charismatic and controversial person he became.
'This book deserves a space on the shelves of even those who have already amassed a significant number of introductions to Lacanian thought ... Essential'
CHOICE
'With extraordinary intellectual generosity (and some humour), he forges a form of psychoanalytic sensibility that is vitalised, not exhausted, by the dazzle and difficulty of its subject'
Vicky Lebeau, Professor of English, University of Sussex
'Martin Murray talks 'about Lacan' in a way that nobody has before: he explains in crystal clear, easily understandable language not just what the notoriously opaque Lacan's ideas were 'about', but also the various shaping forces -- personal, historical, cultural, ideological, artistic'
Jonathan Gil Harris, Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of English, Ashoka University