The Pembroke Seminar

The Pembroke Research Seminar meets this academic year on Wednesdays, from 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM in the Crystal Room, Alumnae Hall.

It brings together Pembroke Center Postdoctoral Fellows, Faculty Research Fellows, Graduate Fellows, other interested Brown faculty and selected students, affiliated Visiting Scholars, and distinguished guest lecturers. The research theme of the seminar changes annually.

Seminar Application and Deadline Information

Current Seminar: 2007-2008
Upcoming Seminar: 2008-2009

Contact for application forms and questions: Donna Goodnow, 401-863-2643

To apply for	Deadline for Application	Award Date
Postdoctoral Fellowship in Residence	Dec 07, 2007	March, 2008
Faculty Research Fellowship	Dec 14, 2007	Jan 31, 2008
Graduate Research Fellowship	Apr 11, 2008	Apr 25, 2008
Undergraduate Research Fellowship	Apr 11, 2008	Apr 25, 2008
Seminar Leadership	Closed	Closed

Current Seminar: 2007-2008
"The Question of Identity in Psychoanalysis"

Seminar Leader

Bernard Reginster

Chesler-Mallow Senior Faculty Research Fellow, Pembroke Center

Department of Philosophy

SEMINAR DESCRIPTION

The 150th anniversary of Sigmund Freud’s birth has occasioned many reassessments of psychoanalysis, some of which are quite critical. Such criticisms tend to ignore two facts. One is that some of Freud’s most basic ideas have become so deeply entrenched that they remain untouched by those criticisms, and their Freudian origins are overlooked. The other is that, over the century since Freud’s early psychoanalytical works, the discipline he invented witnessed a theoretical explosion of new ideas, primarily about the issues of identity and intersubjectivity, which themselves became more and more closely involved with empirical research in psychological development. These new ideas have produced a rich and sometimes confusing fabric of theoretical effects on disciplines as diverse as cultural studies, race and gender studies, literary and media studies, philosophy, religious studies, history, and anthropology. The time has come to take stock. In 2007-2008, the Pembroke Seminar will explore psychoanalytic views on identification, intersubjectivity, and their interrelation. The claim that identification (understood as the development of an identity or sense of self) is fundamentally intersubjective (takes place in a context of relations with others) can be found in a wide variety of guises and across a wide variety of disciplines. But it is in psychoanalysis that most of these disciplines continue to find their theoretical bearings on these issues.

What is the identity, the “ego” or sense of self, of which psychoanalysts speak? What does it mean to claim, as Freud did, that “the ego is primarily a bodily ego”? What are we to make of the fact, recently acknowledged by both child psychoanalysts and developmental psychologists, that some of the earliest, most primitive layers of the sense of self develop before the capacity for verbalizable (self-)representation? What is the relation of identity to basic human needs? Is the development of a sense of self the incidental by-product of frustration in the effort to gratify basic bodily needs, as Freud believed, or is it the gratification of a separate and fundamental need for a stable and enduring sense of self, as some of his successors argued? One of the most central and distinctive claims of psychoanalytic theory is that identity is not an innate given but the product of a psychic process that can be disrupted or altogether thwarted. How does the fact that some people may lack a sense of self affect, for example, the discourse of disciplines (such as moral philosophy, political science, or economic theory) that continue to treat as basic and unproblematic the categories of selfishness and unselfishness? The possibility that identification can be disrupted has inspired the creation of a new category of psychopathologies, the so-called pathologies of the self. What implicit normative views about psychological health, or human wellbeing, find expression in this new category? Among the pathological conditions it is thought to include, we find the lack of an integrated personality, or excessive compliance with the demands of one’s social environment. But what implicit values motivate the characterization of these conditions as pathological, and what value do they themselves possess?

The role and significance of relations with others have arguably become one of the most central issues in psychoanalytic theory, as attested in the names given to numerous post-Freudian theories—object-relations theory, interpersonal psychiatry, relational psychoanalysis, intersubjective psychoanalysis, and recent psychoanalytic engagement with attachment theory, to mention a few. The centrality of relations with others raises fundamental questions. What is the “other” in psychoanalytic theory? Is it simply an object that provides gratification of one’s own basic bodily needs, with which one can therefore develop at best a purely instrumental relationship? Or is it the final object of a basic need to relate? Or again is it a formation having to do with the drives and with the subject’s entry into language? What does the “otherness” of this other consist in? And what are the implications of the various conceptions of otherness we can find in psychoanalytic theory for the psychoanalytic understanding of certain distinctively interpersonal relationships, such as love and trust? The significance of interpersonal relations is most evident in the concept of identification, which is widely viewed as an essentially intersubjective process. But here, too, we find considerable theoretical variation. To mention only one example, is identification the consequence of certain sorts of relational failures, as Freud thought, or is it on the contrary disrupted by such failures, as many of his successors argued?

Upcoming Seminar: 2008 - 2009
"Visions of Nature: Constructing the Cultural Other"

SEMINAR LEADER

Leslie Bostrom

Chesler-Mallow Senior Faculty Research Fellow, Pembroke Center

Department of Visual Arts

SEMINAR Description

In 2008-09, the Pembroke Seminar will look at representations of nature across cultures and disciplines and through history. Humans objectify, admire, exploit, and worship nature. Those in the West have an uneasy and contradictory relationship with the natural world, being of it as animals yet simultaneously observing, consuming, and attempting to control it. Through the visual arts and popular media, through literature, philosophy, aesthetics, and science, through gardening, landscaping, and architecture, humans represent their relationships with nature. Nature can be a kind of dark mirror, reflecting back one’s desires and fears, loaded with contradictions and colonial yearnings. People consume it and attempt to control it, yet revere it and attempt to preserve it. It is thought to be fragile yet indestructible, finite yet cyclical, dangerous yet restful. Notions of the natural are employed to build theories of the human, as in human nature, natural law, natural gifts, natural intelligence. On the one hand, there is something essentially natural about humans, some sort of authentic animal core; on the other, there are fantasies of the wild, as if there were a territory of pure nature excluding the human predator. The Western ethical relationship to nature is similarly ambivalent: on one hand, nature is pure and uncorrupted by human desire; on the other, nature is by definition the location of sin, the refusal or inability to recognize divine intervention and moral authority-- the “Noble Savage” vs. “Lord of the Flies.”

The seminar will look at how such ambivalences toward nature have driven Western cultural aspirations. It will also examine formations that emerge from non-Western representations of nature. What are the issues raised in an examination of the differing attitudes of the Yanomami and Kapayó, both indigenous peoples, toward the Amazonian rain forest? What is the function of the garden in Islamic paintings of the sixteenth century? How do images from nature frame family relationships in Indian film? How did landscape painting of Dynastic China intersect with dominant cultural and political narratives?

The development of Western landscape painting parallels the creation of aesthetics in European philosophy along with the construction of the modern subject. Narratives of nature are embedded in political ideologies such as individualism, altruism, fascism, and democracy. How do animals frame the subject identity of humans? What do scientific, visual, and literary depictions of animals reveal about human “nature”? How is the “human animal” a cultural artifact? How does the cultural definition of “human nature” affect the narrative of its history?

The seminar will look at the ways visions and narratives of nature mark gender. How are representations of nature enlisted as ideology in the politics of sex and power? In some cultures, the relationship to the sexual is marked by a strong ambivalence toward the “animal.” How do notions and fantasies of nature affect notions and representations of gendered bodies? What are the ideological roles of nature in philosophies of child development and psychosexual maturation?

Representations of nature have contributed to colonial ambitions as well as to anti-colonial resistance. How has nature been classified, ordered, collected, and portrayed in the service of colonialism? What is “Natural History”? What do we learn by tracing the evolution of the Museum of Natural History from curio cabinet to diorama? How did the invention of illusionary space affect the depictions of nature and influence (or inhibit?) cultural ambition? What is the semiotics of the “frontier”? Where is nature in “cyberspace”? When does landscape become wilderness and wilderness become “park”? Economic systems, whether capitalist or marxist, have ambivalent relationships to nature, one of both preservation and exploitation. How do visions of nature shape the politics of work and class? In Europe and America, environmental concerns are often a preoccupation of elite classes. How do economic interests shape definitions of the natural, as, for example, in genetic engineering and in medicine, and what are the definitions and effects of ecological crises such as “Global Warming?

Post-Doctoral/ Master of Fine Arts Fellowships

We seek applicants from all disciplines who are interested in the construction and representation of nature. Scholars and artists dealing with visual material are especially encouraged to apply. Recipients may not hold a tenured position. Preference will be given to projects in which there is significant scholarly and theoretical attention given to the theme of the seminar.

This is a residential fellowship. Fellows participate weekly in the Pembroke Seminar, present two public papers during the year, and pursue individual research. Brown University is an EEO/AA employer. The Center particularly encourages third world and minority scholars to apply. The term of appointment is September 1, 2008-May 31, 2009. The stipend is $40,000, plus a supplement for health and dental insurance, unless otherwise covered.

For application forms, contact: Donna_Goodnow@brown.edu or phone 401-863-2643.

Pembroke Center mailing address:

Regular mail:

Pembroke Center
Box 1958
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912

Express mail:

Pembroke Center
Alumnae Hall
194 Meeting Street, Room 204
Providence, RI 02906