Writing Seminar

You flip open your first reading for the course, some essay by Lacan that you’re having a load of trouble trying to figure out. Your eyes start to glaze over as you read over the same paragraph three times in a row, not really making sense of the jumble of words.

Right then, you see Charmaine come into the lounge, talking with Christina about something. You wave a hand, getting their attention.

“Hey, can you guys spare me from this text? I’m wasting away my youth over here,” you say.

“Hey, that's a reading for seminar?” Charmaine asks. Seeing your nod, she continues - “Which is it? The Lacan? Irigaray? Dupas?”

“The Lacan,” you reply.

“I might be able to help you out with that,” Charmaine says. “I’ve actually encountered this one before, and I think it sets up a good framework that we can use to tackle the other readings, if you’d like.”

“Jesus Christ! You nerds! I’ll see you all some other time - I’ve got a pregame at ten if you’re interested Alex,” Christina says, shaking her head. She heads off to her room.

“Thanks for the invite,” you call out ironically, as Christina doubles-back for a second to extend the invitation to Charmaine too. “And yeah, let’s definitely work through these together Charmaine. Lord knows I could use the help.”

With that, she pulls out a slim tablet, navigates to the text, and begins going through the paragraphs with you, highlighting key sentences. You get bogged down and confused at first - “Castration means that jouissance has to be refused in order to be attained on the inverse scale of the Law of desire” you read aloud, frowning to yourself. “What the hell does that even mean?”

“Well, we’ve been reading about the nature of desire so far, yes?” Charmaine says. Seeing your nod, she continues: “And really the only confusing thing here is jouissance, which can mean something like ‘free play’, though here you’re definitely meant to think about orgasm. Think immense physical pleasure.”

“Ah, that makes more sense,” you say, leaning closer to her to get a better view of the text. “Why do these authors always have to stick in random French or German words to get their point across?”

“Well, Lacan was French,” Charmaine laughs, “but luckily, my machine can do the translation for you. Here,” she says, grabbing hold of your hand and moving it over the tablet. “if you tap the word twice like so -“ she presses your thumb against the word jouissance twice, “- the translation comes up!”

“I see,” you say, letting your hand linger against hers. “I think I’ve got a pretty good grasp of this text now. Should we move on to the Dupas?”

“I hadn’t heard of her before today,” Charmaine says, wrinkling her nose a little. She looks cute when she does so.

“Oh, she’s an economist,” you say. “Look, the paper’s titled ‘Relative Risks and the Market for Sex: Teenagers, Sugar Daddies, and HIV in Kenya’.”

Charmaine nods, beginning to read through the paper. You go through it together, and the conversation flows in a different way this time around - Charmaine no longer explaining things to you, since the language itself is pretty straightforward, but you joke together about the findings of the paper.

“So basically, these teens are persuaded to stop having sex with their sugar daddies and have sex with other kids their own age? Sounds about right considering all the girls I know at this school,” Charmaine says. “Why is everyone so depraved?”

“No clue,” you laugh.

“Anyways, I guess that wraps up the work for today. I got to run now, see you,” Charmaine says, practically bolting out the lounge.

You’re a little confused by her behaviour - she seems close one moment, and distant the next. At any rate, you start thinking about the paper you just read, pondering the habits of these Kenyan teenagers, when the beginnings of a plan take shape in your head. It’s not a bad one, you reckon. Yes, not bad at all.

You check the time - it’s almost ten already! There was something you wanted to do before the party - time to get to it.

Charmaine +5
Christina +2