Vortrag in englischer Sprache von Alenka Zupančič
Moderation: Alex Janda und Michaela Wünsch

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Psychoanalysis can certainly tell us a lot about what seems to be an intrinsic connection between sex and comedy. A good place to start this interrogation is Jean Genet's play The Balcony, which also presents us with a most interesting configuration in which contemporary power has assumed and willingly embraced the comedic element of sexuality as the very sign of power. Lacan immediately saw the importance and the ingenious character of Genet's play, and has commented on it extensively in the seminar The Formations of the Unconscious. The talk will discuss some most interesting moments of Genet’s play, as well as explore other, more general aspects of the relationship between sex and comedy. For example: What does this relationship tell us about comedy, and what does it tell us about sex? What is the nature of the so called phallic reference in comedy? What to make of the seeming affinity between sexuality and masquerade? And last, but least: What, if anything, is sex?

Alenka Zupančič is a Lacanian philosopher and social theorist. She is a professor at The European Graduate School / EGS and at the University of Nova Gorica. Zupančič is also a research advisor and professor at the Institute of Philosophy at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.