From Beauvoir to Lacan: Françoise Collin’s analysis of an ommitted rencontre

Abstract

In «Un heritage sans testament» (1986) Françoise Collin reflected on the possibilities and conditions for the transmission of knowledge. Thus, she described it as the basis for the generation of the symbolic, and defined it as a bilateral activity, a praxis, which determines the space of appearance. Thirteen years later, in «Nom du Père. On de la mère», she returned to this question and analyzed the way in which women mystics led Lacan to rethink his answer to «Que veut une femme?». Collin showed that the same women Lacan spoke of had previously appeared in Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, even though he never cites her. This article will analyze the meeting between Lacan and Beauvoir in order to demonstrate that it is a paradigm of the relations of transmission between women and men as they have traditionally existed.

Keywords: Françoise Collin, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Lacan, transmission, women legacy.