PSY 365 Psychoanalysis & Society

What distinguishes psychoanalysis is its indeterminate status: for some, it is a quackery, a caprice of the elites; for others - an impenetrable theory; for still others - the only adequate way of thinking about the world. How is it possible that even a hundred years after Freud's intervention, psychoanalysis manages to evade easy solutions and provoke such a wide range of responses in society? This course aims to follow the main strategies of integrating psychoanalysis into a wider intellectual debate, starting with its historical relations with hysteria as its initial background and ending up with its current theoretical engagement in the activist discourse. Jacques Lacan's theory is taken as the most significant heir of Freudian psychoanalysis. Therefore, the course is focused on unpacking Freudian conceptual apparatus as it was developed within Lacan's structuralist approach. Students are encouraged to analyze their own intellectual, political, or creative contributions and to develop alternative angles productive for self-analysis. The course reader as well as films, and other academic and clinical material will be available for their study and research.