Cult L: Psychoanalysis and affect through a feminist perspective

In this seminar, we will focus on the two most essential methodologies feminist theory has adopted in its post-1970s arduous journey; psychoanalysis and affect studies. We will explore the transformation of the body and biology in these two methodologies while aiming to reveal various points of mutual conglomeration. In this journey, we will be guided by Juliet Mitchell, Elizabeth Grosz, Elizabeth Wilson, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Patricia Clough.

We will investigate the transformation of lacking bodies (psychoanalysis) into bodies of excess (affect studies) and the implications instigated by this transformation; new (symbiotic) relationships afforded to bodies and their environment, new agents coming into play, and the introduction of new bodily technologies. How does the potentiality and capability of a body change when the very excess of the body (both within and with its outside world) is taken into account, and what can be retrieved from such a transformation?