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April 1998, Week 3

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Subject:
From:
"Richard J. Leskosky" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 20 Apr 1998 11:36:29 -0500
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At 11:18 PM -0400 4/19/98, Petra Hanakova wrote:
>Well, JOSHI's definition is much  more a Freudian account of castration
>threat than Lacanian.
>I will try to simplify it as much as posible (but to simplify Lacan and
>not to twist the message is virtually impossible).
>
>For Lacan, the subjectivity is formed in the infant
>on the basis of imaginary identification with his image in the mirror,
>which gives the "body-in-pieces" (infants without full control of his
>body) an illusion of completeness and control. This moment ("mirror
>stage") doesn't yet mark the entry of the infant in the Symbolic order
>(the realm of language and the Law). But the mirror stage marks the first
>of the subject forming "lacks" - subjectivity, for Lacan, is a
>"meccoinassance" of an imaginary control  - a basic misunderstanding and
>misperception.
====
 
I assume there must be an obvious answer to the following question since
the question itself seems so obvious to me, so I apologize in advance if
I'm being obtuse.  Since mirrors were not a part of human experience for
most of the course of human evolution, and since even today most infants in
the world do not have a chance to see themselves much or at all in mirrors,
what is the basis for  hypothesizing a "mirror stage" in infants?
 
--Richard J. Leskosky
 
 
Richard J. Leskosky                             Office phone: (217) 244-2704
Assistant Director                      FAX: (217) 244-2223
Unit for Cinema Studies         <http://www.uiuc.edu/unit/cinema>
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2117 Foreign Languages Building
707 S. Mathews Avenue
Urbana, Illinois 61801
 
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