STONY BROOK, N.Y., March 16, 2009 — On Saturday, April 4, 2009 from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook will present a one-day conference “Remembering Freud: Psychoanalysis Today” at Stony Brook Manhattan, 401 Park Avenue South, New York. The conference aims to honor Freud’s ongoing presence in contemporary life and thought and will juxtapose the contributions of literary and film scholars to the thoughts of contemporary clinicians. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
The Conference Director is Professor E. Ann Kaplan, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies and the Director of the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook. “Freud’s legacies are evident in today’s thinking and practices of psychoanalysis, but we also aim to analyze what has changed in those theories and practices,” said Kaplan. “To this end, we have invited a group of eminent interdisciplinary scholars and analysts to engage in productive dialogue about psychoanalysis in the present while also considering its future,” she added.
World-renowned philosopher, literary critic and novelist Julia Kristeva will deliver the keynote address at the conference, and her remarks will be followed by talks by Alan Bass, Gabriele Schwab and Ranjana Khanna. Kristeva is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Paris and the author of Desire in Language, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, Female Genius and many other books, both of philosophy and of fiction. Her keynote lecture on “Adolescence: A Syndrome of Ideality” will be at 10:00 a.m.
Alan Bass, a psychologist in New York and a translator of Jacques Derrida will talk on "Psychoanalytic Process, the Paradoxes of Self Reference, and Intermediacy"; Ranjana Khanna, Associate Professor in Comparative Literature at Duke University will address "Psychoanalysis Today: the Belated, the Perpetual, and Futurity” and Gabriele Schwab, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Irvine, will discuss "Cannibalism and its Discontents: On Memory, Mourning, and Incorporation after Freud." Their individual talks will be followed by a roundtable discussion.
The event is made possible by the generosity of Dr. Barry Coller and the Departments of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Philosophy and English at Stony Brook University.
Founded in 1987, the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook promotes interdisciplinary research at the cutting edge of intellectual life, through international conferences, distinguished lecturer series, seminars, exhibitions, film series and performances.
For registration and the full schedule of events please visit our website at: www.stonybrook.edu/humanities or call (631) 632-9957.
