Neurotic Conditions
Workshop and Lecture, 6th December
Benjamin Noys, University of Chichester
On the 6th of December, Professor Benjamin Noys from the University of Chichester will lead a workshop and present a lecture on the political dimensions of neurosis. The abstracts for these events follow below. Please contact Tom Bunyard at tombunyard@gmail.com to reserve a place for the workshop, and to receive copies of the readings that will be discussed.
Neurotic Conditions
Workshop
2pm–4.30pm, room G64, Grand Parade
The fate of neurosis has not been a happy one. Overtaken by more extreme psychic disorders as the means to grasp life under contemporary capitalism, neurosis seems to remain a compromised disorder. In this workshop we will explore the possibilities of neurosis, as a disorder of compromise (the neurotic ‘gives way’ on their desire), for grasping the deadlocks of the present moment. Through reading a series of texts, psychoanalytic, philosophical and political, we will return to neurotic conditions to explore the conditions of neurosis.
Readings:
Adorno, ‘The Health Unto Death’, in Minima Moralia
Aaron Schuster, ‘A Philosophical Clinic’, in The Trouble with Pleasure (2016)
Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis, ‘Neurosis’ in The Language of Psycho-Analysis
Freud, ‘The Neuroses of Defence (A Christmas Fairy Tale)’ (1896)
