SPRING 2005

Imagining the Global Unconscious: Histories and Literatures of Psychoanalysis and Colonialism

Spring 2005: Medical History 919
3 credits; 1:15-3:15 W, 1406 Med Sci Center; Prerequisites:
Grad standing and consent of instructor 

Instructors: Warwick Anderson & Richard Keller 

       For most of the twentieth century, psychoanalysis was a tool both of empire and of anti-imperialism. Insights from psychoanalysis shaped European ideas about the colonial world, the character and  potential of native cultures, and the anxieties and alienation of  displaced white colonizers and sojourners. Moreover, this intense 
and intimate engagement with empire came to shape the global  psychoanalytic subjectivities that emerged in the twentieth  century - whether European or non-European. Our understandings of  culture, citizenship, and self have a history that is both  colonial (and thus "global") and psychoanalytic - yet the history of this intersection has been scarcely explored, and never examined in comparative perspective.

This course will begin with close readings of key psychoanalytic texts, colonial literature, and existin g studies of psychoanalysis and colonialism - all of which will form the basis for an exploration of the uses of psychoanalysis for the framing of colonial citizenship and the impact of empire in the making of the modern psychoanalytic subject.

      Sessions will be co-led by faculty and graduate students, with occasional  participation by visiting faculty from other institutions. The readings will draw on work by Albert Memmi, Franz Fanon, Homi Bhabha, and Anne McClintock amongst others.

      Prospective students are strongly encouraged to contact Professors Anderson (whanderson@med.wisc.edu) and Keller (rckeller@wisc.edu) for further information.

Course Syllabus

This site was last updated on May 9, 2005