Reading Foucault Through Lacan: From Hysteric to Analyst

This book offers an explorative analysis of the intersections between Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault that challenges the prevailing notion of incompatibility between their intellectual projects. It proposes an interpretive framework that aligns Foucaults relationship to Kantian critique with Lacans theory of the four discourses from Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis (1969-70). Exploring multiple periods of each thinkers work, the book examines how the conceptual trajectories represented by Foucault and Lacan might be effectively combined to advance a new form of Foucauldian-Lacanianism.

The book is divided into two parts. Part I, The Hysteric, introduces a novel interpretation of Foucaults genealogical method in the early to mid-1970s. Drawing on Lacans schema of the Hysterics discourse, it understands hysteria as a mode of address within which Foucaults critical historiography can be situated. This perspective positions Foucault as a discoursing subject, challenging the uncontested remnants of Kants transcendental legacy. Part II, The Analyst, offers a retrospective of Foucaults earlier work through a consideration of Lacans claim that analytic experience begins with the hystericiziation of discourse. It examines the period between 1979-1984, analyzing significant modifications and shifts in Foucaults work including his reconceptualization of critique. Part II interprets Foucaults re-alignment with Kants critical legacy as retroactively constituting the conditions of transformation from the Hysteric to the Analysts discourse. 

Using newly available English translations of Foucaults lectures and Lacans seminars, the book offers a novel rereading of Foucaults genealogical method, his relation to Kantian critique, and psychoanalysis. It provides fresh insights for students and scholars of psychoanalysis, philosophy, and critical theory.