Psychoanalysis and Antiblackness [6-weeks, $250 Suggested]
***This class is sold out, but interested students can audit this course asynchronously.
Instructor: Ekpo | Thursdays March 10-April 14 | 8:00-10:00 PM ET
In his 1952 treatise, Black Skin, White Masks, psychiatrist, scholar, and revolutionary Frantz Fanon posits that antiblackness serves a powerful social psychic function by enabling “collective catharsis”: an outlet for the release of aggression. Taking this proposition as a starting point, this course will explore the function that antiblack violence serves in the formation of the individual and collective unconscious, for the black and non-black. And we will explore how antiblackness in particular has deeply shaped the societal and psychic structure of the modern world post slavery, colonialism, and capitalism. Specifically, we will focus on the role race has played in the development of one of the most powerful accounts of the modern psyche, psychoanalysis, from its 19th century origins in the work of Sigmund Freud to the present day.
In the first two classes, we will establish and contextualize the place of racial otherness in primary psychoanalytic theories and texts, focusing on several key readings from Freud. Then we will explore mid-20th century correctives to Freud in the psychoanalytic theories of Fanon and Jacques Lacan that enable us to understand the various positions of blackness as a societal mirror, screen, phobic object, and internal/external threat that aids in the self-formation of the non-black. We will conclude with readings from contemporary black studies theorists Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, and David Marriot in order to consider the importance of psychoanalysis in contemporary movements such as anticolonial struggle and black feminism, asking what purpose psychoanalytic thought can serve in the upending of an antiblack global order.
We depend on a mix of direct student donations and supplemental donations to make all classes pay-what-you-can. Please pick the pricing tier that corresponds with your needs and that you are able to pay now. If you would like to pay in installments, make your first payment now and make a note on your check-out form. If you would like to donate more later in the term, you can always come back and use the “Make a One Time Donation” button! To use a full scholarship, just pick the $3 tier to cover site/processor fees.
If at any point up to 48 hours before your first class session you realize you will be unable to take the class, we will work with you to reallocate your funds to a future class, to another student’s scholarship, or refund it. After classes begin, we are only able to make partial refunds and adjustments.