English and drama
Psychoanalysis and Literature
Module code: Q3318
Level 6
30 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Seminar, Workshop
Assessment modes: Coursework
What are the affinities, as well as the dissonances, between literature and psychoanalysis? What kinds of imaginative, creative and political possibilities emerge when we read psychoanalysis and literature alongside each other? What are the legacies of psychoanalytic thought and practice today?
In this module, you’ll read some of the foundational texts of psychoanalysis alongside literary texts from the same period. You’ll begin by considering the seismic shifts in thinking about gender and sexuality at the beginning of the 20th century.
The module also examines:
- how psychoanlysis’s central ideas – fantasy, the unconscious, the dreamwork – might offer unique insight into literature and culture
- how psychoanalysts and writers have sought to diagnose, cure or transform the racist pathologies and psycho-politics of the 20th and 21st centuries
- the parallels and the differences between the present day and the historical moment in which psychoanalysis emerged.
Alongside the work of Sigmund Freud and writers from the late 19th century to the present day, we’ll also consider the work of other psychoanalysts, such as Melanie Klein, Joan Riviere, D. W. Winnicott, Marion Milner and Frantz Fanon.
Module learning outcomes
- Demonstrate a thorough understanding of some of the central concepts of psychoanalysis
- Reflect critically and (for creative-critical tasks) creatively on the historical relationship between psychoanalysis and literature.
- Offer a close analysis of both the formal and thematic features of both psychoanalytic and literary texts.
- Develop a portfolio of written work responding to the ideas and texts encountered on the module.