In anticipation of the publication of the Russian translation of Gabriel Tupinambá’s book “The Desire of Psychoanalysis”, Alexander Smulyanskiy posts 'a reply' to Slavoj Žižek's foreword to the book.

My recent article published in the "Stasis" journal presents alternative theoretical trajectories in the exploration of the hysteric's desire. Expanding the previous "Stasis" issue, devoted to the potential reload of the relations between feminism and psychoanalysis, the article demonstrates that, given their conflicting chacater, the relations between these two disciplines hardly ask for a new synthesis but would rather benefit from unothordox solutions in unexpected places. Oddly enough, one of such places today is an otherwise well-worn question of hysteria.

Having the reputation of the most provocative and inaccessible concepts introduced by Lacan, the Real excites the minds not only in the psychoanalytic community, but far beyond the clinical setting. Introducing the Real in connection with the political is a well established tradition in the history of critical thinking, however, this tricky liaison produces numerous fluctuations of both internal and external theoretical character. Therefore, getting back to the most substantial debate concerning the position of the Real could shed some light on the hitherto unnoticed circumstances.

Considering great interest psychoanalysis evokes in the West among both professional community and general academia, there has been little said about its fate in the post-Soviet space. The history of psychoanalysis during the twentieth and the twenty first centuries in Russia could be characterized as a protracted intermission superseded by a frantic surge of nearly epidemic interest. However, aside from this debatable history, right now it seems to be the place where lacanian psychoanalysis can get its second wind and overcome its current stagnation.

Alexander Smulyanskiy relates the emergence of psychoanalytic discipline with Freud’s desire directed to a particular object which appeared for the first time in his office. This object is the speech of the hysteric who has been given a complete freedom to speak. Owing to this speech, Freud discovered that the hysteric’s difficulties does not only concern her personal problems, but are rather addressed to the problematic character of the male desire. It is the domain of this desire that she indented to expand by giving the man the gift of enjoyment which he himself did not dare to encroach upon. In this way, she was aspired to revolutionize the realm of desire per se.

Pursuing lacanian logic of jouissance as the main discursive operator, psychoanalytic theoretical apparatus elaborated by Alexander Smulyanskiy offers unexpected solutions in what concerns the question of femininity and its crucial importance as a constitutive element of modernity. This article demonstrates the way queer studies diverge from the trajectory of following the fate of contemporary subject and marks a number of theoretic solutions that could allow us to analyze contemporary situation more accurately.

Smulyanskiy’s recent book deals with the most sensitive question within psychoanalysis as a clinical and theoretical discipline, namely – the desire of the analyst. "Paternal Metaphor and the Desire of the Analyst" - is his third book and it follows the major trajectory of his thought, set forth during 'Lacan-likbez' seminars and in two previous publications. The last book investigates perturbations of psychoanalysis as a discourse marked by a peculiar and non-analyzed element – namely, Freud’s original desire. Having provided a comprehensive commentary on contemporary psychoanalytical deadlocks invoked by a dubious position of analyst’s desire, the author manages to introduce several fresh, unorthodox concepts, which could provide a brand-new theoretical twist in the field.

The English translation of the interview that was given by the prominent Russian theorist and psychoanalyst - Alexander Smulyanskiy. In this text, Smulyanskiy presents some of his ingenious elaborations of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Despite a widespread belief in the specific damage of the contemporary subject, the psychoanalytic approach does not reveal any radical transformations in the subject's structure, apart from the perturbations in what could be called the politics of jouissance. Smulyanskiy talks about the discursivity of jouissance beyond the leftist perspective, about the unknown aspects of the desire of the analyst, he introduces publicity as a new gender and reading as a form of sexuation.