On the fourth floor of Clemens is a little-known research center dedicated to one of academia’s most controversial disciplines: psychoanalysis. UB’s Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture, founded in 1968 by a group of Shakespearean scholars, continues to remain active until this day.
More than a century after an Austrian neurologist published his magnum opus The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud and the concept of psychoanalysis remain omnipresent in pop culture.
Ideas such as dreams that represent a calling from the unconscious remain a staple in works of fiction.
Despite its cultural significance, psychoanalysis increasingly fell out of favor among psychologists in the 20th century, with most modern psychologists rejecting the theories as unfalsifiable.
Despite that, many scholars, particularly in the humanities, still see psychoanalysis as a valid tool in understanding human behavior.
One early contributor at the center was Jim Swan.
An essay from Swan titled Mater and Nannie: Freud’s Two Mothers and the Discovery of the Oedipus Complex argues that Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex — one of Freud’s most infamous theories, that young boys on a subconscious level erotically desire their mothers — was Freud projecting his own anxieties.
“Freud’s self-analysis clearly shows that he did not simply discover the Oedipus complex as a universal truth but rather constructed it out of the material of his own neurosis.”
The essay is a historical relic as it compares Freud’s theories with those of Erik Erikson, a prominent mid-20th-century psychologist who studied childhood development, one of Freud’s pet topics.
The center reached its more modern iteration in the early 1990s when Joan Copjec, a prominent theorist, arrived at UB.
Influenced by Jacques Lacan, Copjec brought a Lacanian bent to the center, which predominates to this day.
Today, the center is run by Dr. Steven Miller of the English Department and Dr. Fernanda Negrete of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.
Miller teaches ENG 367, UB’s undergraduate course on psychoanalysis. Past versions of the course have had Freud’s Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality as required reading. Other recommended readings include Wilhelm Reich’s classic The Mass Psychology of Fascism.
Despite the center’s relative obscurity, two graduate students associated with the Center said that they chose UB as their graduate school because of the center’s reputation.
Richard Riley, a fifth-year Ph.D. student in comparative literature, says that “I remember that being a part of my application statement, was the presence of the center.”
Kamla Persaud, a second-year Ph.D. student in the English Department, also echoes this sentiment. “Like Ritchie [I was] looking for schools that had some psychoanalytic involvement or programs designed to satisfy that interest.”
Once a year, the center publishes a new issue of its journal Penumbra, which is edited by Miller and Negrete. Each issue is densely packed with essays discussing the ins and outs of psychoanalytic theory.
This past spring, the center held a symposium inviting modern theorists such as Derek Hook, Sheldon George and Gautam Basu Thakur, all scholars influenced by Lacan.
The center fosters a tight-knit environment of intellectual engagement.
According to Claire Tranchino, a sixth-year Ph.D. student in the English Department, the center has a reading group that last year used to meet on the weekends to discuss theory.
“Essentially we would get together on Saturday mornings at Five Points [Bakery] and read [Lacan’s] seminar out loud… it has been a really productive and important space I think for all of us.”
Tranchino approaches psychoanalysis from the perspective of treating texts as “literary objects.”
To her, past theorists like Freud and Lacan are a bridge to the future.
“[They are] objects that we can use either to shed light on other objects or texts and pieces of literature in turn can also show us the limitations and possibilities of those earlier theories.”
Later this year, the center is inviting Catherine Perret and Derek Humphreys to share their findings about the practices of a late 20th-century educator, Fernand Deligny, who worked with autistic children in France.
As a discipline, psychoanalysis is continuing to adapt itself for the modern age.
According to Tranchino, “A really new point of concern or point of interest is how can we think about the question of transgender and psychoanalysis?”
Negrete says that the discipline has long moved past its historically sexist roots, and is now resisting a biologically deterministic view of gender and “sexual difference.”
Persaud, who double majored in English and psychology as an undergrad, feels that psychoanalysis is still relevant. “A part of my interest in psychoanalysis is because the questions I was interested in were not being represented in psychology.”
She feels that psychoanalysis transcends the limits of psychology.
“The way that illnesses and the human mind is standardized in a certain way that doesn’t leave room for the unsayable, for the nuances of language, for understanding pathology in non-textbook ways that I don’t think are very useful for maybe long-term change.”
Close to 60 years after its formation, this little research center in a tiny office hopes to maintain the relevance of psychoanalysis.
Jacob Wojtowicz is an assistant features editor and can be reached at jacob.wojtowicz@ubspectrum.com
