English 100

Why would anyone even care about Freud anymore? 

This course looks at the development of psychoanalysis as a therapeutic practice and critical methodology in the humanities. We will take up some of its foundational questions -- What is a body? What is the social? What is want? What is the self? What is history? -- through an examination of Freud's key writings and concepts and those of his commentators. More than intellectual geneology, this course will trace the antecendents and future possibilities of psychoanalytic thinking in feminist, queer, trans, and critical race theories. But we will do so by moving very, very slowly and methodically through some key texts by Freud and his (sometimes unwilling) followers.

Readings may include: Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Civilization and Its Discontents, Papers on Technique;  by his interlocutors, Lacan, Klein, and Abraham; critical work by Fanon, Butler, Sedgwick, Gherovici, Marriott, and Spillers.