CLPS GU

This course offers a comprehensive understanding of the origins, foundations and evolution of Freud’s psychoanalytic theorizing during the four decades following 1895. Via close readings of his texts, with neither worship nor condescension, we will situate the development of psychoanalysis as a theory of mind within historical context, and explore its applications to education, society, culture, and the humanities

Subject

CLPS GU

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

points

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Catalog

2026-2027 Bulletin

Source

bulletin.columbia.edu

This seminar will concentrate on close readings of four key texts: Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious; Mourning and Melancholia; Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety; and one additional text to be chosen by the class. These texts are chosen in part to not overlap with those covered in CLPS GU4200. Key supplemental readings will explore aspects of the text’s historical, cultural and intellectual context, contemporary reception, and influence on psychoanalytic theory, philosophy, and beyond

Subject

CLPS GU

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Credit unit

points

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Catalog

2026-2027 Bulletin

Source

bulletin.columbia.edu

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, Laplanche, Klein and Winnicott, we will redefine contemporary debates by exploring their clinical meaning. In addition to offering a comprehensive outline of how psychoanalysis and critical theory relate, this course will expose students to a wide range of contemporary clinical thinking in order to facilitate a deeper engagement with the practical, lived dimension of psychoanalysis

Subject

CLPS GU

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

points

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Catalog

2026-2027 Bulletin

Source

bulletin.columbia.edu

This course explores the origins, performance, reception, adaptation, and translation of The Thousand and One Nights, one of the most beloved and inluential story collections in world literature. An authorless collage built up over centuries, it is an “ocean” of narratives that has much to teach us about how stories work, whether they must come to an end, and our apparently bottomless desire to hear them. In addition to reading the tales themselves and studying their themes and devices, we will delve into the very real history of this curious work and its eccentric interpreters, translators, and readers. Finally, we will consider how the Nights puts pressure on ideas of authorship and originality and enlarges our notion of what a book is – and might be

Subject

CLPS GU

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Credit unit

points

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Catalog

2026-2027 Bulletin

Source

bulletin.columbia.edu