Re: freud-lacan: Jouissance

["Cyril c. So" <cysu@lacanianplace.com>]

Hi,

I don't think we should translate the word and that term is already being
used in US or European academic circle.  Jouissance includes the idea of
pleasure in pain, direct more or less toward death drive.  I think in
French from the time of 70s, Roland Barthes and others has been using this
term. It is quite difficult to find a term in English which can cover the
diversity of meaning and its historical background.

Cyril
cysu@lacanianplace.com







___________

On Wed, 21 Apr 1999 stonej@showme.missouri.edu wrote:



 On Tue, 20 Apr 1999, Jacques B. Siboni wrote:

 > Hello,
 >
 > I had a discussion with Martha Senger (who is a new subscriber --- Hello
 > Martha), trying to translate into English the French word "Jouissance".
 > We could not find anything better than "Satisfaction" which is not so
 > satisfactory!
 >
 > Do you have any suggestions?
 > How is it translated in the English versions of Lacan's books?
 >
 > Bien amicalement
 >
 > Jacques
 >

 I have seen Jouissance translated as "bliss" (I'm not exactly sure where)
 which is only a little more satisfactory than "satisfaction."  Usually it
 is left untranslated; the word Jouissance has been used quite a
 lot in American academic circles over the past twenty years, and by now
 everybody seems to think they know what it means.

 Cordially,
 Jack Stone


I was trying not to get in on this for the very reason you write about,
Jack, in your last sentence.  However, I do have to disagree with the
translation of "bliss" for jouissance (which I have come to discern as a
painful pleasure so as not to miss Lacan's many paradoxical meanings of
all that goes into the term Jouissance).  Bliss is only one manifestion
(form?) of jouissance, in that we detect jouissance in both
the perpetrator of atrocious crimes against the body AND
among religious mystics.  I learned this from the writings
of Maire Jaanus -- jouissance is not equivalent to bliss.

My thoughts on this,
Sheila





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