LFU:online

• appropriation of and argumentation with primary texts
• overview of the history of ideas about the relationship of psychoanalysis to women
• advanced understanding of psychoanalytic theorizing
• advanced writing of social science papers

Psychoanalysis of feminity

In the seminar we will come to a basic understanding of how psychoanalysis thinks the psyche of women. Sigmund Freud's gender theory was less concerned with the individual woman than with femininity, and still thinks of the woman and the girl largely in terms of the man and the boy. Psychoanalysis after Freud increasingly specified the psyche of the woman and thus made it possible to further elucidate femininity. Here the problem became clear, thanks to which psychoanalysis remains topical - that is, sometimes troublesome - even for feminist critique: how does woman become woman?

• independent reading and written processing of the seminar texts (summary, commentary, reflection, reading Q&A)
• in the seminar: joint discussion of the texts
• seminar paper

• six assignments on the seminar texts (ungraded)
• presentation (optional, graded if beneficial to your overall grade)
• oral grades (if beneficial for your overall grade)
• paper with reference to the seminar (graded)

1.3. Einführung

15.3. Sigmund Freud: Das Ich und das Es (1923)

12.4. Sigmund Freud: Der Untergang des Ödipuskomplexes (1924) und Einige psychische Folgen des anatomischen Geschlechtsunterschieds (1925)

26.4. Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel: Zwei Bäume im Garten. Zur psychischen Bedeutung der Vater- und Mutterbilder (1981) [Excerpts]

10.5. Renate Schlesier: Konstruktionen der Weiblichkeit bei Sigmund Freud. Zum Problem von Entmythologisierung und Remythologisierung in der psychoanalytischen Theorie (1981) [Excerpts]

7.6. Judith Butler: Psyche der Macht (2001) [Excerpts]

21.6. Judith le Soldat: Freiwillige Knechtschaft. Masochismus und Moral (1989) [Excerpts]

Note: Except for Schlesier and le Soldat, all texts are also available in English.

You will need a webcam and a headset/microphone for seminar participation.