Psychoanalysis and the Visual

Semester and Year	SP 2012
Course Number	IDSEM-UG1468
Section	001
Instructor	Eve Meltzer
Days	Mon
Time	12:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement	HUM

Description

At least since Freud’s “Dream Book,” psychoanalysis has taught us that psychic life is thoroughly steeped in images. This course will pursue the implications of Jacques Lacan’s theory of the subject. By examining a range of psychoanalytic texts alongside several films and photographs, we will consider Lacan’s proposition that the “I” comes into being though the subject’s identification with his or her mirror image. This is ultimately a problem for sociality itself, for we learn to relate to others by way of how we relate to ourselves, our primordial other. Readings include the writings of Borch-Jacobsen, Descartes, Fanon, Freud, Heidegger, Lacan, Laplanche. Visual materials include North by Northwest, American Psycho, The Thin Red Line, as well as several bodies of photographic images.

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)