A Congress that Keeps Us Waiting, an Entirely New Scilicet

It is our pleasure to announce the publication of Scilicet-Dream: five volumes! One for each of the five official languages of the World Association of Psychoanalysis (WAP). The volume originated in work that began in July 2018, after conversations with Pascale Fari, whom we now take the opportunity to thank. We started off with the hope that this work would highlight both the multilingual aspect of WAP and the work-transference occurring among its different schools.

For each entry the work occurred in several languages, bringing together colleagues from different schools, all members of WAP. As for the writing itself, as always it mobilized the ones-all-alone, each one working in their solitude. This is not the first time a written product has resulted from work in cartels. What is new is the inter-school dimension for each entry. Apart from the languages and the different schools, it was also a matter of carefully selecting the entries and getting them down to only 22 titles, in order to promote a more focused research, one targeted on problematizing the theme of the dream. We then regrouped these entries into six sections, using a quote drawn from Jacques-Alain Miller’s “Lacanian Orientation” as an epigraph for each.

With the first one, “So then, what of the dream, royal road to the unconscious? Let us first note that dreams are not simply to be interpreted. If they are to be interpreted, it is because they are enciphered. What we must first interrogate is this -is it meaning that is to be interpreted, or is it the reason for the enciphering?”[1] Here are the titles of the entries collected under these quotes: Unconscious; Signifier Work: Ciphering/Deciphering; Traumdeutung; Royal Road.

As an opening to this volume, Jacques-Alain Miller’s text “Awakenig,” published in Ornicar? 20/21 in 1980 and which has since become a classic, has held our attention because of our interest in the theme of waking up in the Lacanian treatment, via the dream. This text gives us food for thought in orienting our practice: “This term ‘awakening’ is one of the names of the real as impossible.”[2] It outlines a perspective on the very last Lacan, as the epigraph for the fifth part of the volume formulates it: “The very last period of Lacan’s teaching unfolds in a space in which there is no awakening.”[3]

This volume was to appear at the start of the Buenos Aires congress. Its authors worked tirelessly, aided by the guiding texts, the bibliography, the interviews, the Rebus newsletter, and many other guides on the Congress’ website. The work by the translation teams and each School’s editing were remarkable. The surprise at finding this volume, paging through it, diving into it, was eagerly awaited. We were waiting for it just as we were waiting for a true encounter with the authors, in the beautiful month of April in Buenos Aires.

This Congress has still not taken place. But the moment has come to release the volume that would accompany it. Let’s use this Scilicet in the pursuit of our “dream work,” in this strange period, until the Congress occurs.

The 12th WAP Congress: when, how, will it take place? We’ve been asking this question since April 2020, since it was not able to be held as expected. For the answer we have to wait...still.

We have invited Silvia Tendlarz, general coordinator of the volume, to do her bit to whet our appetites!