Psychoanalysis, invented right around the turn of the twentieth century, is the one body of knowledge about human nature that claims desire and fantasy to be its primary (and primal) features. Developed in order to help alleviate human suffering, psychoanalysis finds the root cause of that suffering to be the very same desires which are the root and branch of both individual and social life, even in its noblest (and seemingly transcendent) manifestations. In proposing such ideas about human nature, psychoanalysis broke with and de-constructed hierarchical systems of belief which judged people by the standards of religion, goodness, morality, normalcy, or other ideals. Instead, psychoanalysis sees us as defined by our desires (of whatever sort) and our capacity to express, deny, project, transform, and realize them, through the elements of speech, language, and symbolism. In this course we will study a variety of psychoanalytic texts, plus a few literary ones, in order to introduce ourselves to certain concepts and ways of thinking central to psychoanalytic theory. We will read such authors as Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Karen Horney, Henry James, Franz Kafka, and Jean Rhys, and explore theories of the unconscious, gender and sexuality, normality and perversion, guilt and sacrifice, reality and nightmare.

Attendance: Three unexcused absences permitted. More will affect your grade.
Required work: two 4-5 page papers, each 25%; final exam 40%; participation 10%.