This document provides biographical timelines and summaries of key concepts for Jacques Lacan and Luce Irigaray. Lacan was a French psychoanalyst who developed theories around the mirror stage, the symbolic order, and the three orders of human reality. Irigaray was a Belgian feminist philosopher and psychoanalyst who critiqued Lacan and developed concepts of the feminine gaze, écriture féminine, and psychoanalytic feminism.

1. Jacque Lacan & Luce Irigaray
By: Danielle Feige & Rachel Smith
ART 508: Readings in Art Theory
Professor Marco Deyasi
03.12.09

2. Lacan Timeline
Born on April 13, 1901 in Paris, France
•
1920s
•
– 1920 begins to studied medicine.
– 1926 specializes in psychiatry and become active in the surrealist movement.
– 1928 he becomes interested in the study of paranoia.
1930s
•
– 1932 completes doctoral thesis entitled “Paranoid Psychosis & its Relations to the Personality”, which is
adopted by the Surrealists.
– 1934 marries Marie-Louise Blondin, and had 3 children between 1934 and 1940.
– 1936 gives a lecture at the Congress of the International Psychoanalytical Association on the Mirror Phase, but
was interrupted and not allowed to finish
1940s
•
– 1940-1944 serves in a military hospital in Paris during WWII and did not publish during this time.
1950s
•
– 1951 advocates the “return to Freud”.
– 1953 he develops the concepts of the 3 registers of human reality of the symbolic, the imaginary and the real.
Formed the Societe Fransaise de Psychoanalyse after leaving the Societe Parisienne de Psychoanalyse.
Married Sylvia Bataille and had a child.
1960s
•
– 1963 he was removed from the list of training analyst of the Societe Fransiase de Psychanalyse and forms
Ecole Freudienne de Paris to write “The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis”.
– 1967 introduces “the pass” where the listener or analyst decides if the patient passes.
1970s shifts his views from emphasizing the father to the sinthome
•
1980s
•
– 1980 he closes his school, Ecole Freudienne de Paris after 16 years.
– 1981 dies on September 9.

3. Lacans Influences
Like any other professional aspiring to gain notability in any
field of study, Lacan borrowed ideas from those before
him, modifying when necessary, to further support his
studies.
• Saussure: Borrowing Saussure's study of linguistics, Lacan is able to
determine that the unconscious is structured like language.
• Levi-Strauss: Through the study of Structural Anthropology, Lacan was
able to grasp the crucial transition from nature to culture.
• Freud: Lacan based much of his work on Freudian theories, and even
called for the “return of Freud”.

4. Lacans Contributions to Psychoanalysis
Lacans career can be broken down into 4 stages:
• 1926-1953: Working in the area of conventional psychiatric
work, which evolved to include psychoanalytic study, primarily
that of the Mirror Phase. Lacan also presented his lecture series
known as the Discourse of Rome, which later evolved into
Ecrits.
• 1953-1963: Structural linguistics became more important to
Lacan during this time in his life. He used linguistics to further
elaborate and explain some Freudian studies.
• 1964-1973: Departing somewhat from his Freudian frame of
study, this period marked the time when his research became
known simply as Lacanian. It is during this time he placed the
seat of neurosis within the Ego.
• 1974-1981: Lacan introduces The Three Registers of Human
Reality.

5. The Three Orders of Human Reality
• The Real exists before language, mental
models, and cultural codes.
• The Imaginary is associated with the Mirror
Stage, thus it is pre-symbolic and pre-
language.
• The Symbolic is an essential feature of the
human transition from nature to culture.

6. The Mirror Phase
• One of Lacan’s first major contributions to Psychoanalysis.
• The Mirror Phase usually occurs in children between
6 and 18 months.
• Recognition of self is the first step in becoming aware
of the ability to control one’s body, of awakening the
Ego, and the beginning of the transition from the pre-
linguistic to the linguistic stage of life.

7. Oedipus Complex & Oedipal Triangle
• Oedipus Complex
• Oedipal Triangle: the mother, the child, and the
Phallus.
• The Name-of-the-Father is bound up with the
Symbolic and describes the castration of the father.
• The Phallus is the object of desire.

8. Desire
• The Other being described as an object or
being other than the individual with the desire.
• Objet (petit) a’ is the unattainable object of
desire or other.
• Jouissance is an extreme paradoxical pleasure
that may be too intense or have deadly
consequences.

9. Mary Kelly, Post-Partum Document, Introduction, 1973

10. Irigaray Timeline
Born in 1932 in Belgium.
•
1950s
•
– 1954 Degree in Philosophy and Arts
– 1955 Writes doctoral thesis in Philosophy and Arts
– 1956 Concours D’ Aptitude in Higher Education
1960s
•
– 1961 Degree in Psychology
– 1962 Diploma in Psychopathology
– 1968 Doctorate in Linguistics
1970s
•
– 1971 Doctorate in Philosophy and Art
– Psychoanalytical Training
– 1974 expelled from Ecole Freudienne de Paris

11. Feminism
• Feminism is rooted in gender inequality
• 3 Waves of Feminism
• Types of Feminism

12.
Monica Sjoo “God Giving Birth” Oil painting, 1969

13. Psychoanalytic Feminism
• Seek to find a solution through Lacan’s ‘return to Freud’.
• This group focuses on gender inequality as it is based in
certain childhood occurrences allowing men to be masculine
and women to be feminine.
• Philosophers associated with this form of feminism include
Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray.

14. The Gaze
• The Gaze occurs when a person becomes the
object of another beings ‘look’ or ‘gaze’.
• The Male Gaze is a term coined by Laura
Mulvey where classical Hollywood cinema
allows the viewer to hold a masculine stance
with the female as the object of desire.

15. Sylvia Sleigh-The Turkish Bath (Oil, 1973)

16. Écriture Féminine
• Developed by Hélène Cixous.
• Literally means, ‘feminine writing’.
• This form of writing takes on female perspective
and experiences to move away from the typical
patriarchal system.