The Institute of Philosophy at ZRC SAZU, in collaboration with the doctoral program Comparative Studies of Ideas and Cultures at the Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU (module: Transformations of Modern Thought – Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Culture),
invites you to two lectures by Lachlan Kermode, a doctoral student at Brown University.
Friday, February 6 and 13, 2026, at 5 p.m. in the Gosposka Hall of ZRC SAZU, Gosposka ulica 16, Ljubljana:
Commodity Form, Sexualization, and Subject
This two-part seminar will be based on the thesis that there is an isomorphic relationship between the methods of political economy and psychoanalysis. Both techniques identify an essential characteristic of the subject: that it speaks and socializes, thereby entangling its nature in an internal contradiction. For both Freud and Marx, the speaking and social subject is not only what it is, but also something less—or more. At the first meeting, we will focus on Marx’s theory of commodity form from Capital as a reconfiguration of Kant’s self-sufficiency. In the second meeting, we will follow the thesis that this mathematical consistency in Marx appears (again) in Lacan’s theory of the subject. Psychoanalysis thus puts Marx’s philosophy on its feet and asks the question: what should we do with ourselves when we know that we can never know everything about ourselves?
The event will be held in English.
Lachlan Kermode is a doctoral student in contemporary culture and media and a master’s student in computer science at Brown University, where he is mentored by Joan Copjec. In his dissertation, From Capital to Calculus: Marx and the Cradle of Computer Science, he analyzes how computer science achieved institutional sovereignty in industry, epistemological dominance in academia, and the status of untouchable interpretive authority in addressing personal and political issues.
Cover image: Alexander Klepnev