Public Lecture Series 2009-2010
Current Events and Their Discontents:
Psychoanalyzing Politics, Culture and History
In the seminal book Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud grappled with the fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual. We at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis welcome you to attend our fourth annual Public Lecture Series, “Current Events and Their Discontents: Psychoanalyzing Politics, Culture and History.”
Current events that fill our newspapers and television screens are often dizzyingly complex. Understanding demands a blend of multiple perspectives and analysis. Perspectives in our media and public discourse, however, are often limited to politics and economics. Psychoanalysis offers a valuable addition to these points of view because it is rooted in a rich tradition of exploring the dimension of individual and group psychology that lies unexamined beneath the surface of everyday discourse. This series brings creative psychoanalytic thinking to bear on some of our most pressing and complex contemporary issues, including immigration, race, healthcare and same-sex marriage. The series is offered free of charge; you are welcome to participate in any and all lectures.
Inner Lives in Transition: Ethiopian — Israeli Children and Parents
Nathan Szajnberg, M.D.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009; 7:30pm - 9:00pm
The United States and Europe are facing emigration of populations from second- and third-world countries, often populations with radically different world views and ways of childrearing. How do we balance the values of those immigrant cultures while respecting the values of the new culture? How does attachment theory and practice help us with these families and children? Sigmund Freud Professor at The Hebrew University, Dr. Nathan Szajnberg has been conducting research on the inner lives of six-year-old Ethiopian–Israeli children and their parents. The parents were all born in rural, pre-literate, subsistence agricultural villages in Northern Ethiopia; most mothers were married by 13 years; many of the children were born in Ethiopia and arrived as infants to Israel. Most fathers, from this formerly patriarchal society, are marginalized and unemployed. Many of the parents originate from families force-converted to Christianity in the 1890s. How do these children think and feel about themselves, understand the worlds in which they live; how do the parents think of relationships and recall the world which they left, and feel and think about the world to which they came? That is, what happens to inner lives in transition? These are the fundamental questions we hope to raise and begin to address in this lecture.
The Struggle for Universal Health Care
Rachael Peltz, Ph.D., Isabel Alegria, B.A., Richard Bloom, Ph.D., Elliott Currie, Ph.D. & Ray Poggi, M.D.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009; 7:30pm - 9:00pm
A panel comprised of Members of the Green Dogs political action group will present a discussion on the current struggle to create universal health care in the United States. The panel will address wide-ranging issues, including the impact of the lack of reliable health care on the American psyche, the meaning of different proposals for health care reform, the political dynamics shaping the fight for adequate health care, and the tensions between health care and immigration reforms. The panel will also discuss practical strategies for getting involved in this historic movement.
Double-Consciousness and the Subversion of Love in Toni Morrison's Tar Baby
E. Victor Wolfenstein, Ph.D.
Monday, December 7, 2009; 7:30pm - 9:00pm
In The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois identified double-consciousness, a painful experience of divided selfhood, as one of the psychological effects of white supremacy on those who are subjected to it. Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby is virtually an experimental setting for the exploration of this phenomenon. The focus of our discussion will be on Jadine Childs and Son Green - one is a light-skinned sophisticate, the other a dark-skinned outlaw. For these star-crossed lovers, double-consciousness wins, love loses. Our aim will be to understand how and why. Professor of Political Science at UCLA and author of six books, Dr. Wolfenstein’s current project, tentatively titled “Talking Books: Toni Morrison Among the Ancestors,” explores the problem of the color-line and the experience of cultural trauma in Morri-son’s Tar Baby, Beloved and Jazz.
I Do, But Only in Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Maine, and Possibly Washington, DC: Understanding the Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage.
Gary Grossman, Ph.D.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010; 7:30pm - 9:00pm
The opposition to same-sex marriage in the United States has been, and continues to be, fervent and extensive, often arguing that the institution of marriage is under threat. But what is so threatening about lesbians and gay men getting married and why is the opposi-tion so fierce? Although typically absent in the literature from insti-tutions and individuals who oppose same-sex marriage, attitudes and beliefs about homosexuality play a determining role in their arguments. In this lecture, Dr. Grossman will discuss the psycho-logical impact of marriage on lesbian and gay couples. In addition, he will address the organized opposition to same-sex marriage, highlighting the role of homophobia, prejudice and unconscious anxieties embedded in the arguments supporting traditional mar-riage.
Sigmund Freud's Civilization and its Discontents or Why Can't We All Just Get Along? [Course Cancelled on 04/12/2010]
Erik Gann, M.D.
Spring 2010, date TBA; 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Late in his long career and voluminous writings, Freud wrote this provocative text, describing the inherent difficulty in any society that is created by having to be “civilized.” He had written previ-ously about the intimate relationship between mankind’s highest, moral values and the most primitive impulses. In this work, he added the impact of his relatively new concept of the Death and destructive Instincts and the various derivatives of these essential components of the human make-up and character. Dr. Gann will provide an overview of these and other theoretical conceptions that underlie Freud’s notions about the intrinsic conflicts within itself that society cannot escape and, then, lead an open discussion about the implications of these ideas for the “civilized” (or uncivilized?) world at large.
Location: SFCP Auditorium, 2340 Jackson St., 4th Floor, San Francisco (entrance on Webster St.)
Registration: Public Lecture Series — 03/03/2010
(These lectures are free of charge)
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Please send in registration, via fax/e-mail or RSVP to:
SFCP, 2340 Jackson St., 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94115
415-563-5815/FAX 415-563-8406; finance@sf-cp.org
