Happy First Week of the New Year -- TGL S1:002
Hello Friends,
Happy new year, and all of that.
Generally, this time of year means taking a break, however, there will not be much of a break for me. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be busy working on the following things:
- Project 6521 — In the department at the university where I work, each full-time faculty member “owns” a required course. This means keeping the syllabus current, making sure the materials are current (textbooks, articles, videos, podcasts) are current, and maintaining the online learning environment. I do this for SWK6521, which focuses on applying psychoanalytic theory and technique in clinical settings. It’s a TON of work.
- Project 6370 — This is a class I’ve never taught before, and I’ll be teaching it for the first time in the Spring 2021 semester, so I’ve got to get up to speed on this.
- Project 7500 — This is a doctoral-level seminar on group therapy, another thing I’ll be teaching for the first time. (But it’s a seminar, which will make the prep a lot easier.)
- Tenure Dossier — I started this, but I wouldn’t say I like doing it, so doing it takes a lot of mental energy.
- Baby Prep — As if one could ever be ready! Nonetheless, my partner and I are trying to be as ready as we can be for baby #2 to arrive.
All this, along with seeing patients and doing the various things I do with the Lacanian Compass.
Being this busy might result in a shorter version of CP over the next week or two. (Shorter means not all the normal sections will be in every edition of the newsletter.)
Tools:
I've been making a new website to go along with the launch of The Gorman Limit newsletter and podcast.
There are a few sections of the site.
- One is the archive of these newsletters.
- Another will be an archive of the Lacanian Mojo newsletters. (Nothing is in this section now. I'll add the first thing next week after the first Lacanian Mojo goes out.)
- And a third part is called Hello Daystar, which is a thing I just started doing this week. (You can use the link to check out this section for yourself if you want to.)
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Podcasts:
The most recent episodes of InForm: Podcast have some impressive download numbers! The content has been considering the question: Does psychoanalysis need to be marginal? Thus far, we have two episodes (042 & 043) out where we talk through this question.
The new format that Jared and I are using, where we divide the podcast up into three parts, is working really well. The format is also more fun for us, so win/win.
Last bit of podcast news: I made a new graphic for InForm: Podcast. What do you think?
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The forth episode of The Gorman Limit podcast went out on Wednesday. Making that was a lot of fun.
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Ghost of My Life:
As anyone who listened to InForm: Podcast 042 now knows, I’m in the process of cleaning out my basement and getting rid of lots of stuff. One of the things I came across as I was doing this was the 2002 album Deadringer (Spotify, Apple Music) by RJD2. I gave the album a listen after years of not listening to it, and it still holds up as something that sounds so good!
Living in the Jackpot?
Scholar Jason Lyall wrote the following in an article that was published by Foreign Affairs.
Scholars have long believed that offensive weapons are destabilizing, because they lower the costs of conquest while raising security fears among their potential targets. Armed drones take this idea even further. Unmanned vehicles are significantly less expensive than piloted aircraft, and militaries can send them on risky missions without fear of losing personnel. Moreover, because drones are cheap, countries can acquire them in numbers large enough to quickly swarm an adversary’s defenses. Militaries have already used dozens of drones in recent wars, and in future conflicts they are likely to deploy thousands, if not tens of thousands, to destroy or degrade opposing forces before they can mount a response.
Cheap, armed drones thus trade disposability for survivability. A military can afford to lose large numbers of them, so long as enough remain to destroy designated targets. Even if each drone is individually vulnerable, deploying them en masse provides safety in numbers. The cumulative effect can overwhelm even the strongest defenses.
Reading this makes me think of so much of the Si-Fi fiction I’ve read, and it makes me think that life is becoming more and more like it was in said Si-Fi fiction. Reading Lyall’s article, Ender’s Game was the thing that came to my mind right away.
Fin:
Nest week I'm going to send out an edition of Lacanian Mojo (first one since switching to this "channel" system). It will be a continuation of my riffing on the Lacanian concept of the real.
Till next time: Make glorious mistakes!
-N
Word Count: 415 | Total Words in 2021: 868