[S][J][P]

Neil Gorman

Neil Gorman

Neil Gorman is an assistant professor at the Aurora University School of Social Work, and a practicing Lacanian analyst, and a maker of podcasts, newsletters, & other sundry things.

📍 Near Chicago http://neilgorman.com

Symbolic Bodies

In Philosophy of Care [https://www.versobooks.com/books/3951-philosophy-of-care] Boris Groys [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Groys] explains in the present we have a "symbolic body" that is administered by large bureaucracies, the most powerful of which is the state. > Indeed, protection of our living

The Modern State is Biopolitical

In the introduction to his book Philosophy of Care [https://www.versobooks.com/books/3951-philosophy-of-care] Boris Groys [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Groys] says: > Foucault was right when he described modern states as biopolitical. Their main function is to take care of the physical well-being of their populations.

Super InFormal | Season 2, Episode 001

I just released the first episode of the second season of my podcast Super InFormal, which is available to A/V Club and SUPPORTING Members of [S][J][P]. To get access to past and future episodes of Super InFormal you'll need to become a A/V Club

Why People Like to Hate Freud

A while back, I did an InForm: Podcast [https://inform.transistor.fm/] about why people enjoy hating Freud so much [https://inform.transistor.fm/episodes/inform-046-why-do-people-enjoy-hating-freud-so-much] . More recently, I found this great bit of text in Janet Malcolm [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Malcolm]'s The Purloined Clinic

Legible Desires & the Other

OMG. This week is kicking my ass, and I'm super tired. Be that as it may. I'm still reading (at this point, it is re-reading, again and again) The Invention of the Partner [https://www.thelacanianreviews.com/the-invention-of-the-partner/] by Jacques-Alain Miller. I have thoughts. I don&

Anxiety as Humidity

Over the past week, I've been doing some teaching about anxiety and anxiety, panic attacks, and phobias. As I was teaching on Monday, I thought of a metaphor to explain some of the things I think about anxiety. I was in the middle of a lecture when this

All Anxiety is...

Yesterday, I wrote about how all drive is (in some way) death drive [https://www.surplusjouissance.com/miller-on-desire-v-drive/]. I also think that all anxiety is castration anxiety. -◉- The idea that all anxiety is castration anxiety came up years ago in a session of analysis. It was the first

Jouissance & Drive

More from Miller's The Invention of the Partner [https://www.thelacanianreviews.com/the-invention-of-the-partner/]. Yesterday I wrote about drive [www.surplusjouissance.com/miller-on-desire-v-drive], today I'm focusing on what the text has to say about the connection between jouissance and the drive. > There is jouissance and at

Miller on Desire v. Drive

I wrote a bit about this earlier [https://www.surplusjouissance.com/drive-v-instincts-in-psychoanalytic-theory/], and today I'm going to return to the short text The Invention of the Partner [https://www.thelacanianreviews.com/the-invention-of-the-partner/], Jacques-Alain Miller [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques-Alain_Miller]. What I want to look at this

Drive v. Instincts in Psychoanalytic Theory

Much has been made about the stupid decision to translate instinkt and Trieb into the English word instinct. One of the main effects is this translation error is that it creates and maintains a misunderstanding of what drive is and what makes drive different from instincts. In The Invention of