The focus is usually on one of Lacan’s renowned seminars. Because of their famously dense, difficult and enigmatic style, these lend themselves well to close analysis and open discussion. Lacan’s ideas have touched, even transformed, various disciplines, from continental philosophy to Film Studies, literary theory to analyses of consumer culture, and he provides the primary theoretical framework for many contemporary theorists, from Slavoj Zizek to Alain Badiou. In the past, the Lacan Reading Group has worked on Seminars VII, XI, XVII, XX and XXIII as well as some of the écrits and other works in the wider field of Lacanian theory. Despite this theoretical orientation, the Lacan Reading Group maintains a close attention to clinical questions regarding psychoanalytic practice and the contemporary cultural context in which it takes place.

This reading group looks at a variety of texts, including the more accessible interviews, which deal with Foucault’s understanding of the connections between knowledge and power. Because Foucault has had such an impact across a wide array of disciplines, from feminism and queer theory through to surveillance studies and on to the politics of medicine and cultural and intellectual history, a number of doctoral students are benefitting from sustained attention to his work. The Foucault Reading Group is currently run by Stephen Legg (Gegraphy).