Resistance and Repair

In a time of increasing distress and unrest, how do we choose between resistance and repair?

We are living in an age of endless duress and destabilization in which threats to our security, sanity and relationships are proliferating daily. Whether it’s a hostile political climate, a fraying economy, or precarious interpersonal relationships, people increasingly find themselves thrust into circumstances that are traumatic, disruptive, and destructive. And while every era has its own crises, today’s climate is unique for the profound despair it generates, a despair which leads people to feel there is no way to survive without disconnecting – from themselves, their objects, or their institutions – entirely.

In this course, we’ll work at the intersection of critical theory and contemporary psychoanalysis to inquire into the relationship between resistance and repair. Although the phrase “rupture and repair” is a mainstay of psychological discourse, in recent years, the pressure of fraying social conditions has prompted thinkers to ask whether resistance is the more appropriate response to the harm we experience.

In queer theory, many writers have approached this problem from the perspective of the “antisocial” thesis, which argues that often the most revolutionary thing we can do is detach from the promise of repair completely. But while these calls to detach and disconnect are popular within critical and queer theory, they are categorically at odds with how the dominant psychological understanding of the individual as a being who craves intimacy, requires attachment, and desires connection. Not only do the foundational works of modern psychology see recognition as central to survival and health, but they also view detachment, passivity, and disconnection as dangerous and self-defeating.

How do we reconcile political calls for resistance with psychological calls for repair?

This course examines the complex relationship between resistance and repair by familiarizing students with the clinical and theoretical concepts at the core of contemporary critical and clinical theory. We will focus specifically on the topics of: sexuality, perversion, trauma, identity, relationality, narcissism, gender and attachment in order to explore how these concepts work today. Delving into theoretical writing by Foucault, Preciado, Berlant, Halberstam, as well as clinical writing by major psychoanalysts, Freud, Laplanche, Loewald, Lacan, Laplanc