PREMIUM-Episode 75: Lacan & Derrida Criticize Poe’s “The Purloined Letter”

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

• Episode: PREMIUM-Episode 75: Lacan & Derrida Criticize Poe’s “The Purloined Letter”
• Website: The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
• Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ThePartiallyExaminedLife
• Duration: 00:32:36
• Published: 2013-04-20 01:28

On Jacques Lacan's "Seminar on 'The Purloined Letter'" (1956), Jacques Derrida's "The Purveyor of Truth" (1975), and other essays in the collection The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida, and Psychoanalytic Reading. How should philosophers approach literature? Lacan read Edgar Allen Poe's story about a sleuth who outthinks a devious Minister as an illustration of his model of the psyche, and why we persist in self-destructive patterns. Derrida thought this reading not only imposed a bunch of psychobabble onto the story, but demonstrated that Lacan just didn't know how to read a text. Get the full discussion at partiallyexaminedlife.com.