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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

Some Notes on Inherent Vice by Pynchon

From Pynchon at the Beach: Inherent Vice is the key to understanding Thomas Pynchon. Why do critics hate it? By Jim Ruland. Throughout his [Pynchon's] novels—which address subjects ranging from the founding of America to the destruction of Europe—he is interested in those on the wrong

A Note on Pynchon's Themes

From Upper West Side Story: On ''Bleeding Edge'' and Thomas Pynchon's Tangled Web by Rachel Wetzler. Though their settings have varied wildly, from colonial America to 1970s Los Angeles, Mr. Pynchon’s basic themes have remained remarkably consistent: the dark underside of technological progress,

Lacan | Seminar XI - Session 1

Excommunication: The Main Points This post is part of a series of posts having to do with a reading of Lacan's Seminar XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, which was given in 1964. It was the first Seminar Lacan gave after his excommunication from the IPA. -◉

Democracy, Elites, & Legitimacy

From The Revolt of the Public by Martin Gurri: The fate of democracy, I believe, is inextricably bound to the fate of elites in democratic nations. The current elite class, having lost its monopoly over information, has been stripped, probably forever, of the authorizing magic of legitimacy. [...] We need to

Psychoanalysis & Punk Rock

One of the things that runs through several episodes of InForm: Podcast is the question: Does psychoanalysis need to be marginal? The claim that I've made is that psychoanalysis does need to be marginal. What I've offered to back up this claim comes from the book

Pure Psychoanalysis & Pure Punk Rock

From the opening pages of Our, Band Could Be Your Life, by Michael Azerrad. On September 24, 1991, an album called Nevermind by a band called Nirvana came out, went gold in a matter of weeks, bumped Michael Jackson off the number one spot on the Billboard album charts soon

Psychotherapy is About Reclaiming (Investing) in an Identification

In Pure Psychoanalysis, Applied Psychoanalysis, and Psychotherapy, Miller does a deep dive into what makes psychoanalysis different from psychotherapy. Miller highlights many things, but the text below strikes me as very important. (It is also connected to what I posted earlier here.) In terms of psychotherapy, one could say: the

Love & Transference

From Still Life with Woodpecker, by Tom Robbins. Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed,

Psychotherapy Preserves the Consistency of the Other, Psychoanalysis Does Not

More from J.A. Miller on the difference between psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in Pure Psychoanalysis, Applied Psychoanalysis, and Psychotherapy: We preserve, in psychotherapy, the consistency of the Other, since what would be unique in the analytic position pertaining to psychoanalysis itself would be admitting the question of jouissance, would make

Vamperized

From the most recent [S][J][P] ◉ Newsletter I sent out yesterday: I've been re-reading the text Pure Psychoanalysis, Applied Psychoanalysis, and Psychotherapy by Jacques-Alain Miller. The whole text is engaging, but one of the parts that strikes a chord with me is from the section with the