136-260/360 Psychoanalysis and Social Theory

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Objectives:

Students who complete this subject should:

• possess knowledge of some major traditions in psychoanalytic theory; particularly Freudian, Kleinian and Lacanian;

• possess knowledge of some major traditions of social theory and their appropriations of psychoanalysis;

• possess an understanding of the place of psychoanalysis within certain forms of feminist theory;

• possess an awareness of why social theory has been drawn to psychoanalysis for the purpose of both theorising and analysing subjectivity, group processes, intergroup relations, ideological formations, and forms of reason;

• possess an understanding of the ways in which social theory has turned to psychoanalysis in order to develop methods of analysis which may be used in the study of empirical cases, be these individual or social;

• possess an awareness of the centrality of psychoanalysis to the contemporary human sciences.

Content:

Psychoanalysis has informed and influenced contemporary social theory in significant ways. Central to theorising the decentred course of late-a and post-modernity; it has radically affected conceptualisations of ideology, thrown reason under radical suspicion and has contributed to better understandings of sexed identities and gender relations. In particular, Freud, Klein, Lacan, Kristeva, Adorno, Fromm, Habermas, Mitchell, Giddens, Flax and Althusser are addressed, along with empirical research which draws upon their work.

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