The experience of the Cartel

The experience of the Cartel

What is this thing called “Cartel”? The London Society of the NLS is organising an event to share what the experience of the Cartel entails.

What is this thing called “Cartel”? The Cartel is an innovative way of studying in a group that the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan invented. It is the gateway to Lacanian psychoanalysis and to the School as it is its central organ and a device that makes psychoanalytic knowledge accessible to all rather than a select few. The Cartel offers an opportunity to work and discuss with peers, to produce something new and unique and thus contribute to the knowledge of psychoanalysis. With the Cartel, the School shows itself to be democratic, anti-authoritarian, putting at the center a desire for knowledge but from a position of docta ignorantia, that is to say, from an initial position of learned ignorance.

The London Society of the New Lacanian School is organising an event around the experience of forming, working and being in a Cartel. With it, we aim at a wider audience: those who have been in Cartels already but also, and most importantly, at those who have never been in one but are interested in finding out more about it. We welcome anyone interested in getting a better idea of what Cartels are or simply a curiosity around psychoanalysis of a Lacanian orientation and its way of working. We encourage audiences from other disciplines that could make use of this unique device called the cartel to join us

Three speakers will share their experience of being cartelisands, not from a theoretical perspective but through illustrating the singular learning effects that Cartels entail. We will try and capture something about the experience of the cartel for different cartelisands, as they pursue their personal theme of study with the help of others. Presentations will focus on the different components of the cartel experience: cartel formation, the day to day meetings, the role of cartelisand, the knowledge at stake in the cartel and the function of the plus one. Following these presentations we will open an informal space of discussion with questions from the audience.

Come and join us on the 9th of July at David Game College in London! It will also be a great opportunity for people to express interest in forming a Cartel and get to know others who wish to do the same!