Read and approved, or to proofread?

Every year our Association submits for study a Lacan seminar. From September to June, we gather around the task of carrying a meticulous reading to then meet at the end of August and share the effects of our journey through the text.

How does this exercise differ from the interpretation made, for example, by a rabbi who regularly takes up a sacred text? “What a Sem!” [“Qu’est-ce qu’on Sem!”] was the mischievous title of one of our first magazines more than thirty years ago, already addressing this question.

But what else?! [Encore], we will say this month of August 2023. Like the rabbi, we are in transference, we love a text – which is not a sacred text but still what a bloody text it is! But furthermore, our reading is accompanied by another dimension, that of the group: we are also in transference of work, we are nourished by the discoveries of our peers. The title of our magazine could also have been understood as “How much we love each other!” [“Qu’est-ce qu’on s’aime”] since transference is love, we appreciate or not the pickings (first etymology of “to read”) made by our friends. Agreements and disagreements pepper our debates and enrich our practice.

Let us add a remark by Melman, who at various times reminded us of the use of this curious term « Seminar ». Beyond the education and tradition of Lacan, the seminar is a seedbed, a reference to the seed… to the semen. This means that we are not only “among us” and that this exercise also aims to the transmission of the tools bequeathed by our elders. This is probably the other way of hearing this old magazine title: “What do we sow?” [« Qu’est-ce qu’on sème!”], as a question about the formation of analysts.

If Borges said, « what matters is not to read but to reread », let’s take advantage of a summer break and do like the Argentinian, let’s come back to reread the text, before starting the next.

Omar Guerrero

Traduction faite par Lorena Strunk