Hysteria's Women: Literature, Psychoanalysis, and Feminist Theory

This course interrogates how psychoanalysis understands the relation between the sexuated body, femininity, knowledge, and desire. We will read texts at the intersection of literature and film, feminist studies, continental philosophy, and postcolonial studies to consider the specific challenges that feminism poses for psychoanalysis, particularly an international feminism that is attentive to class, race, and history. Readings will include texts by Freud, Lacan, Beauvoir, Irigaray, Gallop, Rose, Cornell, Spivak, and Djebar. Films could include: "A Dangerous Method" (Dir. John Kerr), "Her" (Dir. Spike Jonze), and "Fire" (Dir. Deepa Mehta).