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Student: Jacqueline Rogozinski

ENGL 304.401
instructor(s):
TR 12-1:30

While it has been more than a hundred years since Freud discovered the unconscious since it was in 1897 that Freud started his self-analysis and discovered that "Nothing human was alien to him", one may wonder about the survival of Freudian thought today: with the rapid development of genetics, biology and chemistry, one often hears that psychoanalysis is obsolete and has lost its scientific credibility. In order to assess Freud' legacy in our culture, this seminar aims at a systematic rereading of Freud's works by focusing the practice of the "talking cure" in the wake of questions posed by Lacan's French school. We will study the various channels through which Freudian ideas have permeated our culture. We shall read first Freud's groundbreaking book on dreams (The Interpretation of Dreams) before engaging with a few clinical essays (Dora: An analysis of a case of Hysteria, The Wolf Man, The Rat Man, The Psychotic Doctor Schreber, The Sexual Enlightenment of Children.) We will then survey meta-psychological texts like Leonardo da Vinci, Jokes, Civilization and Its Discontents, and Moses and Monotheism. To provide with a more contemporary approach, we will conclude with Lacan's Seminar on The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Requirements: a short weekly response paper, two ten page papers, one oral presentation. No final exam.

fulfills requirements