A FEW WORDS ABOUT LOVE, DESIRE, PLEASURE based on selected quotations from J. Lacan's teachings

A FEW WORDS ABOUT LOVE, DESIRE, PLEASURE

based on selected quotations from J. Lacan's teachings

We invite you to the next seminar in the series “A Few Words About Love, Desire and Pleasure based on selected quotations from J. Lacan's teachings”, which will take place on Saturday, February 7, from 11:00 to 13:00, at Ordynacka 11/1 in Warsaw and via Zoom.

This time we will propose a discussion of the concept of castration — its meaning in Lacan's theory and the consequences for understanding the difference between the sexes and access to desire.

1. If for Lacan castration no longer refers to the law of the Father (as for Freud), but to the law of language and the question of the phallus as the signifier, what does this mean for our understanding of the difference between the sexes, if their positions regarding the phallus — possessing the phallus or being it — differ radically?
2. Why does Lacan claim that castration is not an imagistic threat to the male anatomical organ, but a condition that allows the subject to gain access to desire?
3. What does the subject “pay” when entering language, and why is this symbolic debt structurally unpayable?
4. How are the three concepts — pleasure (jouissance), anxiety and desire — related in women and men?

We will refer, among others, to r.13 “Aphorisms on Love” from Lacan's Seminar X entitled Anxiety, including the cited fragment: “However things may be, insofar as the woman wants my jouissance, that is, to take pleasure in me, she arouses my anxiety...” (Seminar X Anxiety 1962–1963, r.13 “Aphorisms on Love”, part 3, p. 116, translation FPPL).

Leading:
Anna Wojakowska-Skiba, Marcin Piotrowski

📅 Date:
Saturday, February 7, from 11:00 to 13:00

📍 Place:
Ordynacka 11/1, Warsaw, 1st floor entrance A, room 3 and Zoom

💰 Admission — payment information:

• Participation in a single seminar: 100 zł
• For students: 60 zł
• (10% discount for paying the whole series in advance)

Annual flat-rate fee (for those who are not FPPL members; allows participation in all FPPL classes in the academic year, except seminars with guests from France — with about a 40% discount):

• For the period February 2026–June 2026:
• regular: 1 050,00 zł
• for students: 600,00 zł

If you choose this option, please make the payment no later than February 6, 2026. It is possible to split the flat-rate payment into installments or a monthly payment of 170 zł.

✉️ Contact regarding payments and sending proof of transfer:
zarzad@fppl.pl

All payments should be made to FPPL's bank account:
79114020040000390275538931 — please indicate in the transfer title which classes the payment concerns.

The instructors do not receive a fee; the payments are used for FPPL's statutory activities: promoting psychoanalytic knowledge by organizing classes and inviting psychoanalysts from abroad.