Summer Institute of Psychoanalysis

“Psychoanalysis & Gender”

June 24-28, 2024

The Summer Institute of Psychoanalysis, a joint venture of Northwestern University and the Sorbonne Nouvelle that was inaugurated in 2017, develops topics at the intersection of psychoanalysis and the humanities.  We are pleased to announce that the 2024 session takes place from June 24 through June 28 in Paris and focuses on the topic of “Psychoanalysis and Affect.” Taught in English, the Institute proposes an intensive week of study for doctoral and postdoctoral students in the humanities.

If you are interested in attending, please send your CV, a 300-word statement of interest, and a 2-3 page abstract of a research paper, with a bibliography, on either psychoanalysis and/or affect studies by March 15 to Alessia Ricciardi (a-ricciardi@northwestern.edu) and Isabelle Alfandary (isabelle.alfandary@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr). 

Affect is a central notion in the understanding of psychological and social conditions that has also played a crucial role in philosophical theories from Spinoza and Nietzsche to Heidegger and Deleuze.  A very dynamic field of study - that of affect studies - has been entirely devoted to it for over thirty years.  Contemporary developments in queer studies, aesthetics, and the theory of care are inseparable from questions of affect and emotion, which animate subjects as well as professional and political actors.  Since its foundation by Freud, psychoanalysis has been interested in studying the role of affects in psychic life and, in some cases, limiting their scope or questioning their reliability, preferring to explain psychic or social life in terms of drive.  Although at times considered hostile to affects, Lacan’s theory arguably may be said to be centered not only around the drive but also the specific affect of anxiety.  Finally, the British school of psychoanalysis, as represented in particular by Melanie Klein and Winnicott, reserved a structuring role to affects, phantasy, and the internal world. Where do we stand with affects today?  What is the difference between affects, feelings, emotions, and passions from a psychoanalytic point of view?  What is the relationship between sexuality, pleasure, and affect?  Are affects just passive reactions or effects?  What role can they play in psychoanalytic clinical practice and how does the larger field of affect studies relate to psychoanalysis?  This year’s session will be divided into junior seminars in which we will discuss pre-circulated papers from participating students and three senior seminars: “Affects and Drives in Freudian Psychoanalysis,” led by Prof. Alfandary; “Affects Through the Prism of Lacanian Theory,” led by Prof. Nesme; and “After the Death Drive: Affects in Melanie Klein,” led by Prof. Ricciardi.

Participating Faculty for 2024:

Isabelle Alfandary Professor of American Literature and Critical Theory, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris-3

Patrick Guyomard, Psychoanalyst, Président de la Société de Psychanalyse Freudienne

Sandra Laugier, Professor of Philosophy, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Axel Nesme, Professor of American Studies, Université Lumière-Lyon 2

Alessia Ricciardi, Herman and Beaulah Pearce Miller Research Professor in Literature, Northwestern University

Vladimir Safatle, Professor of Philosophy, Universidade de São Paolo