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Freud Between the Two Cultures (HON 407U)

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Instructor: Kathleen Merrow

Course Content
We will investigate the nature of, and relationships between, the sciences and the humanities. We will do this by taking as a case study Freud's development of psychoanalysis as a disciplinary practice that attempted to position psychoanalysis as neither psychiatry nor biology, neither philosophy nor religion, but as something new with the authoritative power to comment upon and interpret these competing discourses. This is not an investigation of whether psychoanalysis is "really" either one of the sciences or the humanities. Rather, we will use our study of Freud to think through the ideological and disciplinary investments at work in such divisions. Our study of Freud's texts from this perspective will:

  1. use Freud's work to establish psychoanalysis as an autonomous science as a critical framework for thinking about the nature and relative status of the sciences and the humanities;
  2. use Freud's work as a way of thinking about the kinds of boundary-marking and exclusionary practices that have gone into establishing the "divide" that separates the culture of the sciences from that of the humanities;
  3. use the responses to Freud's work that you will investigate in your individual research to study how these "divisions" are still highly contested.

Along the way, we shall learn something of value about one of the most important theoretical frameworks of the twentieth century.

Required Texts
Sigmund Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams (Avon), Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (Simon and Schuster), On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, and "One of the Difficulties in Psychoanalysis" (Handout)

Available as pdf files through the course reserves at the Millar Library:

  • "'Wild' Psycho-Analysis" Volume 11, pages 219-227 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. [London: The Hogarth Press, 1910]. BF173 F6253 vol. 11
  • "The Question of Lay Analysis" Volume 20, pages 183-258 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. [London: The Hogarth Press, 1926]. BF173 F6253 vol. 20
  • "The Question of a Weltanschauung" Volume 22, pages 158-182 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. [London: The Hogarth Press, 1932-36]. BF173 F6253 vol. 22

Detailed schedule information
Contact me for a copy of the complete syllabus with dates for reading and writing assignments.