Psychoanalysis, Antisemitism, and Racism

Psychoanalysis has a long history of engagement with, and resistance to, issues relating to ‘race’ and racism. These issues include assumptions found in early psychoanalysis that derive from colonialist attitudes towards the ‘primitive’ and ‘savage’ and that continue to freight some psychoanalytic thinking. They are also connected to psychoanalytic (and psychoanalysis’) responses to antisemitism as well as to other forms of racism. Yet there is also a history of engagement by psychoanalysts and social theorists drawing on psychoanalysis, in which psychoanalytic concepts and practices are used to contest racism and antisemitism. Through a set of three seminars each based on recent papers, I hope we can mine this complicated and contradictory history to examine what psychoanalysis can, and should, do in relation to the contemporary racist conjuncture. For each seminar, I provide one paper that participants can read in advance that we can focus on discussing.

This short set of seminars arises from a previous series but is free-standing and open to new participants. The seminars will take place online at 10am-12pm EST on the following Sundays: 14th April, 19th May, 16th June.

1. To deepen participants’ understanding of the history of psychoanalysis’ engagement with social issues, especially racism and authoritarianism.

2. To develop participants’ thinking about the potential for psychoanalysis to engage actively and positively with antiracism.

3. To engage as a seminar group with psychoanalysis as a social theory and critical practice.