Professor Juliet Mitchell: ‘in my heart there was a kind of fighting’ (Hamlet): some thoughts on warring and war

Description

CRASSH lectures supported by the Thriplow Charitable Trust

Professor Juliet Mitchell

 

Professor Juliet Mitchell will give the second in a series of five lectures on Understanding Society. The series will culminate in a panel discussion at Kings Place on Tuesday 27 November 2012. 

Abstract

Public warfare and private depression, unfortunately, distinguish all human societies. Using, but standing against, the evolutionist understanding of violence and warfare, I suggest that to the contrary, warfare depends on a prohibition of violence. Following this prohibition warfare contributes to the construction of human society. Gender analysis and psychoanalytic insights into unconscious processes frame the argument which also briefly mentions Hamlet to illustrate its thesis.

The lectures are free and open to all, no registration required.

Full lecture series: 

 

Professor Juliet Mitchell

Juliet Mitchell's work in gender and psychoanalysis has led to numerous publications, including, among many others, Psychoanalysis and Feminism (1974), The Rights and Wrongs of Women (ed. with A. Oakley, 1977),  Mad Men and Medusas: Reclaiming Hysteria and the Sibling Relationship for the Human Condition (2000) and Siblings: Sex and Violence (2003). Among her research interests are Gender differences from a psychoanalytic, literary and social history perspective with particular reference to siblings. Her work has revealed the importance of siblings and the neglect of a horizontal paradigm in contrast to the dominant vertical parent-child relationship of the Pre-Oedipal and Oedipus Complex and more widely in the social and psychological sciences. Professor Mitchell is currently Professor of Psychoanalysis and Director of the Expanded Doctoral School in Psychoanalytic Studies at UCL Psychoanalysis Unit and Andrew W Mellon Visiting Professor at the Courtauld Institute of Fine Art. She is also the Founder Director of the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Cambridge, a Research Fellow at the Department of Human Geography, University of Cambridge and Fellow Emeritus of Jesus College, Cambridge, and Emeritus Professor, University of Cambridge. She is a Fellow of the British and International Psychoanalytical Societies and a Fellow of the British Academy.

 

Poster image from Flickr creative commons by HowardLake