A prominent member of the French structuralist movement, Louis Althusser
was influential for reinvigorating Marxist thought in France in the
196Os with celebrated works such as For Marx and Reading Capital. Yet
many readers are not as familiar with the profound impact of
psychoanalysis on Althusser's life and work. Writings on Psychoanalysis
gathers, for the first time, Althusser's major essays on psychoanalytic
thought. The volume begins with Freud and Lacan, which lays the
groundwork for comprehending Althusser's entry into psychoanalysis.
Letters to D. was the result of Althusser's fervent reading of Rene
Diatkine's paper "Aggressiveness and Fantasies of Aggression, " years
before Diatkine was his psychoanalyst. Invited by Leon Chertok to
participate in the "International Symposium on the Unconscious, " at the
Tbilisi colloquium, the chapter The Tbilisi Affair presents Althusser's
essay "The Discovery of Dr. Freud." The chapter In the Name of the
Analysands... reprints Althusser's "Open Letter to Analysands and
Analysts in Solidarity with Jacques Lacan, " written the day after the
famous meeting on the dissolution of the Ecole Freudienne de Paris.
Characterizing Lacan as a "magnificent and pitiful Harlequin, " the
'open letter' relates Althusser's untimely outburst at that assembly and
the "spectacular and violent intervention he subsequently made in the
presence of Lacan." The volume closes with the correspondence between
Althusser and Lacan, detailing their first and last meetings with each
other and the launching of one of the central alliances of contemporary
French thought.