THE LETTER 62 Summer 2016, pages 65-69

As the last among a series of respondents, I am faced with a certain loneliness
that fosters the illusion of intellectual freedom, which does not necessarily
imply scientific ease. This position may have influenced my current response
to the lectures of conference’s organisers Prof. Ruth Ronen and Prof. Shirley
Sharon-Zisser, at the conclusion of this most serious and impressive event.
They have honoured me by expressing a desire, a desire that I respond to
each of their lectures, suggesting that the role of the desire-complex in the
academic field also be put up for inquiry (the desire-complex in this context
is to be understood as the never-ending manoeuvrings of academic scholars
with their pre-sonal desire, always logically preliminary to their scientific
work but constrained by their bureaucratic responsibilities). I first came to
know of this expectation after their works were sent to me as inscribed theses
a number of weeks ago.
It is my hope that the limited scope of my comments will not harm the impression
these impressive lectures have created for such a respectable audience.
You are an international audience, one that includes Americans, Australians
and English that accept the rhetoric and logic of neutral English – which is
equally strange to all non-English speakers and is thus democratic in cutting
pleasure. It may seem that the only exception to this situation are the speakers
among us today whose native tongue is indeed English, but – they are possibly
found to be in a state, which is the inverted mirror image of the Primal Father
(ur-papa), of the Exception-Subject in the Freudian-Lacanian formulation of…