Seminars
Mondays; 12.00-1.30pm and 1.30-3.00pm
Wednesdays; 9.30-11.00am and 11.30-1.00pm

2014-15 Weekly Syllabus

TERM 1

WEEK 1 Trauma: the Beginnings of Psychoanalysis

1. Breuer and Freud, Studies on Hysteria (1895), in SE vol. 2 (PFL, vol. 3):

a/ chap. I, “On the Psychical Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena: Preliminary Communications” (1893),

b/ chap. 2, Case Histories : (3) “Miss Lucy R”, (4) “Katarina”.

2. Freud, “Psychopathology of Hysteria” (the Case of ‘Emma’), Project for a Scientific Psychology, Part II, sections 1-5, (1895), SE vol. 1.

3. Jean Laplanche, “Afterwardsness” in Essays on Otherness. ed. John Fletcher (London: Routledge, 1999).

WEEK 2 Seduction: Theory and Practice

1. Freud, “Further Remarks on the Neuro-Psychoses of Defence” (1896), SE vol. 3.

2. John Fletcher, “Of Primal Scenes and Primal Fantasies”, from chapter 9. Freud and the Scene of Trauma (New York: Fordham University Press. 2013), pp. 220-224.

3. Sheridan Lefanu: Carmilla from In a Glass Darkly (1872), OUP, 1993. Also available as a free download.

WEEK 3 Narrating Trauma

1. Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1916-17), Lecture 17 ‘The Sense of Symptoms”, Lecture 18 “Fixation to Traumas – the Unconscious”, (SE 15, PFL 1)

2. E.T.A. Hoffmann, “Mademoiselle de Scudery” (1816), in The Tales of Hoffmann, Penguin, 1982.

WEEK 4 Sexuality and the Drives

1. Freud, “Infantile Sexuality”, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), SE 7 (On Sexuality, PFL 7).

2. Freud, “On the Sexual Theories of Children” (1908), SE 9, (On Sexuality, PFL 7).

3. Freud, Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy (“Little Hans”, 1909), SE 10 (Case Studies I, PFL 8).

WEEK 5 The Ego as love-object: Body Ego, Skin Ego versus ‘Reality Ego’

1. Freud, “On Narcissism” (1914), SE 14 (On Metapsychology, PFL 11).

2. Freud, The Ego and the Id (1923), chapters 1, 2 and 3, SE 19 (On Metapsychology PFL 11).

3. Didier Anzieu, “The Skin Ego’’, Psychoanalysis in France, ed. S. Lebovici and D. Widlocher, NY,1980.

4. “If I continue gazing” (the mirror aria), Semele (1743), G.F. Handel. (see YouTube for a range of performances of this aria).

WEEK 6 Reading Week

WEEK 7 Freud's Copernican Revolution and its Problems

1a. Freud, letter to Wilhelm Fliess, 21st September, 1897, The Complete Letters of Freud to Fliess: 1887-1904, ed. J.M. Masson, (Harvard U.P., 1985).

1b. Freud, “A Difficulty in the Path of Psychoanalysis” (1917), SE 17.

2. Jean Laplanche, “Implantation, Intromission” in Essays on Otherness, ed. J. Fletcher, Routledge, 1999.

Week 8 Laplanche’s General Theory of Primal Seduction

1. Letter to Fliess (on the concept of translation), 6th Dec. 1896, Freud-Fliess Letters, ed. Masson (pp. 207-9).

2. Jean Laplanche, “Towards a General Theory of Seduction”, ch. 3, New Foundations for Psychoanalysis (Basil Blackwell, 1987).

3. William Blake, "The Mental Traveller" (any edition / internet).

WEEK 9 ‘Ptolemaic’ versus ‘Copernican’ readings: Oedipus

1. Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus (426 BC), translated as Oedipus the King, trans. Thomas Gould, Prentice-Hall, 1970.

NB It is essential to use the Gould translation and notes.

2. Freud, extracts on Oedipus and Hamlet from The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and letter to Fliess, 15/10/’97 (ed. Masson).

WEEK 10 ‘Ptolemaic’ versus ‘Copernican’ readings: Hamlet

1. William Shakespeare, Hamlet 

TERM 2

WEEK 1 Interpreting Dreams

1. Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), (SE 4 and 5, PFL 4), chapters 2, 3,4, 6 (sections A, B, C, D and I) and 7 (C).

WEEK 2 Narrating Dreams

1. Wilhelm Jensen, Gradiva: a Pompeian Fantasy (1903), trans. Helen M. Downey, Green Integer, 2003. This includes Freud’s essay on Gradiva. Gradiva alone is also available as a free download.

2. Freud, “Dreams and Delusions in Jensen’s Gradiva “ (1907), reprinted in the above and also in SE vol. 9 (also in Art and Literature, PFL vol. 14).

WEEK 3 Screen Memory, Sublimation and the Return of Seduction

1. Freud, “Screen Memories” (1899), SE 3.

2. Freud, Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood (1910), (SE 11, Art and Literature, PFL 14).

3. Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa (1505+, Louvre), London Cartoon: Virgin Mary, St. Anne and Child (1508, National Gallery), Virgin Mary, St Anne and Child (1508+, Louvre), St John the Baptist (1509, Louvre).

WEEK 4 The Permutations of Fantasy

1. Freud, “A Case of Paranoia Running Counter to the Psychoanalytic Theory of the Disease” (1915), SE vol.14 (On Psychopathology, PFL 10)

2. Freud, “‘A Child is Being Beaten’: A Contribution to the Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversions” (1919), SE 17 (On Psychopathology, PFL, 10, SE 17).

3. Anna Freud, “Beating Fantasies and Daydreams” (1922), in The Writings of Anna Freud, vol.1, 1922-35, London: The Hogarth Press, 1974.

4. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “A Musical Instrument” (internet).

WEEK 5 The Frame of Fantasy

1. Freud, “A Special Type of Choice of Object Made by Men” (1910h), SE 11.

2. Slavoj Zizek, “The Seven Veils of Fantasy” in The Plague of Fantasies, Verso Books, 1997. Sections 1-3.

3. John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes” (1818), with missing additional stanza VIa, in Romanticism: an Anthology, ed. Duncan Wu.

4. Thomas Hardy, The Well Beloved (1897), Wordsworth Classics.

WEEK 6 Reading Week

WEEK 7 Sado-Melancholia: Poe and the Eros of Mourning

1. Freud, “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917) SE 14 (On Metapsychology, PFL 11).

2. Edgar Allan Poe, Poems: “The Raven” *, “Ullulume”, “Annabel Lee”. Tales: Ligeia,* Morella, Berenice, Eleanora, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1845), (Poe: Poe: Selected Writings, ed. Galloway or any collection of Poe’s writings / websites).

WEEK 8 Necro-Melancholia: Keats and the Exquisite Corpse

1. Maria Torok, “The Illness of Mourning and the Fantasy of the Exquisite Corpse” (1968);

2. Maria Torok and Nicholas Abraham, “Mourning or Melancholia: Introjection versus Incorporation” (1972), both essays in The Shell and the Kernel, vol.1, ed. Nicholas Rand, University of Chicago Press, 1994.

3. John Keats, Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil (1818), "On Melancholy" (1819) plus cancelled first stanza (1819). Any edition / website.

WEEK 9 The Compulsion to Repeat: Reading the Death Drive

1. Freud, “Remembering, Repeating and Working-Through” (1914).

2. Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), SE 18, (On Metapsychology, PFL 11). chapters 2, 3 and 4. Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819).

Week 10 The Uncanny and the Death-work

1. Freud, “The Uncanny” (1919), SE 17 ( Art and Literature PFL 14).

2. E.T.A. Hoffman, “The Sandman” (1816), Tales of Hoffman, Penguin, 1982.

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