François Peraldi

Life and career

Peraldi was studying medicine when he underwent a teaching psychoanalysis at the Paris Psychoanalytic Society. He then completed his training at École Freudienne de Paris. He began working as an institutional psychotherapist with young psychotics. Along with his psychoanalytic training, he completed a doctorate in linguistics with Roland Barthes at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

In 1974 he emigrated to Montreal with an appointment in the Department of Linguistics of the University of Montreal. His Peraldi seminar, held every other Wednesday from 1976 to 1991 helped create a community of like-minded practitioners. In 1986 Peraldi established the Réseau des Cartels, designed as a way to pass on the learnings of himself and his cohorts without creating an institutionalized system.

He edited the Polysexuality edition of the journal Semiotext(e), which outlines his personal approach to sexuality.