Perspectives on "Lacanian Subjectivities"

Despite the fact that the quality of the literature published on Lacan in the English-speaking world has increased markedly in the last decade – a development towards which many of this issue's participants have made notable contributions (Stavrakakis, 1999, 2007; Glynos, 2000, 2001; Leader, 2002, 2008; Salecl, 2003, 2004; Parker, 2005, 2007; Neill, 2006; Chiesa, 2007; Leader and Corfield, 2007) – Lacanian notions of subjectivity remain, nonetheless, under-utilized within the social sciences, cultural studies and contemporary social theory alike. Much of this literature has refuted the stereotypes of anti-psychoanalytic critique, such as the idea that psychoanalysis inadequately understands the subject-to-society relation, that it remains antithetical to socio-historical critique or the contention that the notion of the unconscious commits one to an essentialist depth-psychology. In so doing, this recent Lacanian literature has successfully demonstrated the applicability of Lacanian thought to a variety of pressing societal, political and ideological dilemmas