School of Advanced Study
INSTITUTE OF ENGLISH STUDIES
University of London
Psychoanalysis, Literature and Practice
Fridays, 5-7, Senate House, Room G37
This group will focus on psychoanalysis in relation to contemporary debates about sexuality,
affect, time, trauma, memory, space, virtual life and the life of objects. It will bring texts
under both theoretical and clinical scrutiny, with the aim of creative engagement and crossfertilisation between ideas of what ‘practice’ might mean within literature, culture and
psychoanalysis. There will be an emphasis on a return to texts by Freud and his immediate
circle as well as later 20th century theorists such as Winnicott, Lacan Klein, Green and Bion.
Contemporary work by Laplanche, Bollas, Phillips and Eigen may also fall within our view.
Each week, our reading of the theoretical work is inflected by attention to a literary, art,
dance, photographic or theatre text or other cultural practice. Each session will be led by a
clinical or academic Commentator, who will make c. 30 minutes of preliminary remarks on
the week’s reading and open the group’s discussion.
21 October 2011
Text: Freud, ‘Psychoanalysis and Telepathy’ S.E. 18; Dreams and Telepathy’ S.E .18;
George Eliot, ‘The Lifted Veil’.
Commentator: Janet Campbell, University of Birmingham and Psychoanalytic
Psychotherapist.
18 November 2011
Text: D.W, Winnicott, ‘Dreaming, Fantasying and Living’ in Playing and Reality;
Sally Mann, Last Light (1990) and The New Mothers (1989).
Commentator: Lesley Caldwell, Psychoanalyst and University College London.
9 December 2011
Text: Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle S.E. 18, Chs 4 and 5; Jean Laplanche ‘Why the Death
Drive?’ Chapter 6 of Life and Death in Psychoanalysis;
Emily Dickinson, selected poems.
Commentator: Josh Cohen, Goldsmiths, University of London and Psychoanalyst.
13 January 2012
Text: Freud: ‘Typical Dreams’ Section D, Chapter V of The Interpretation of Dreams;
Jean Laplanche ‘Implantation, Intromission’, in Essays on Otherness.
Shakespeare, Hamlet; Sophocles Oedipus Rex.
Commentator: John Fletcher, University of Warwick.
3 February 2012
Text: Susanne Langer ‘The Symbol of Feeling’ in Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art;
cultural text tbc.
Commentator: Kenneth Wright, Psychoanalyst.
16 March 2012
Text: Christopher Bollas, Hysteria;
Henry James, The Wings of the Dove.
Commentator: Nicola Diamond, University of East London and PsychoanalyticPsychotherapist.
Hosted by the Institute of English Studies at Senate House, this seminar is a collaboration
between and in receipt of generous financial support from the IES, the University of
Birmingham and the University of Warwick. It is convened by Janet Campbell, Department of
English, University of Birmingham J.Campbell.1@bham.ac.uk and Emma Francis, Department
of English University of Warwick E.J.Francis@warwick.ac.uk who may be contacted for
further information.
www.ies.sas.ac.uk
All welcome
*