Lacan's May '68: Analysing the Institution in the Wake of the Discourse of the University

This chapter tracks the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s evolving position on the French experi-ence of May 1968. Lacanian notions around structure and desire were clearly at play in the run up to the May events and initially Lacan was supportive of both students and workers. Yet quite quickly his position hardened into an objection to the appeal being made to a certain version of psychoanalysis, one which championed desire as inherently revolutionary. On the contrary, La-can saw very early that capitalism was perfectly capable of profiting from desire. The chapter argues that Lacan’s invention, in 1969, of the ‘four discourses’ (which included the discourse of the university) was a direct response to May 68. The chapter also argues, however, that La-can’s reflections on the problematic nature of the psychoanalytic training school since the late 1950s prefigured, and indeed fed into, the May Movement’s critique of hierarchical institutions. By looking at Lacan’s innovations with the structure and logic of the psychoanalytic school, the chapter argues for a different framing of May ’68 than the one associated with the so-called ‘philosophies of desire’.