21 & 22 June 2024 – Birkbeck University of London at Clore Management Centre building CLO BO1, 27 Torrington Square, LONDON WC1E 7JL & Online
Join us for a two-day conference examining the past and rethinking the present and future of psychoanalysis and feminism.
This will be a hybrid event – online attendance via Zoom – and will be recorded.
Tickets are on sale NOW on Eventbrite – reduced price tickets are available for Site members and trainees
Details of speakers and programme are attached.
“Every desire has a relation to madness” (Irigaray).
“Women suffer from drives without any possible representatives or representations”. (Irigaray).
We are not done with Patriarchy. Psychoanalysts with a political consciousness and an attentive, non-patriarchal ear know this better than anyone else. It creeps into our analytic space, the so-called ‘safe space’, we become witnesses to the suffering of life, to oppression and violence, to the colonisation of the psychic life by a neoliberal ‘progressive’ regime that wishes to prolong patriarchy through a phallic over-signification that reproduces a culture of sameness. Gender trouble does not seem to trouble enough, and the phallocentric gender pluralism gets along very well with a neo-liberal discourse. The numerical multiplication of gender options does not seem to take us away from the political economy of sexual dialectics. The binary machine is as present as ever, bigger and stronger, since the array of dichotomies has expanded and has become capable of signifying even the in-between, grey zone. It has also implanted deadly antagonisms within the current landscape of identity politics. Divide and conquer – patriarchy renders itself invisible, internalised, accepted, even celebrated. Successful displacement.
A feminist revolution will not take place in the repetition of language, in the cracks of regulative discourses, but in ‘the liberation of forces’: in the wild thoughts of psychoanalysis!
This conference does not contain itself in the fossilised position of the minority that produces resentment, negative critique and reactive resistance wrapped in claims for recognition. The political imperative is no longer to resist through negation, but to resist through affirmation, creation, playfulness, imagination, where the unconscious is perceived as a generative creative power, rather than reduced solely to the neurotic sick unconscious. Desire is not lack and to desire is not to long for something. Desire is the desire to produce new ways of feeling, of perceiving and conceiving, new ways of relating that are not reduced to phallologocentric articulations of a monosexual culture, but wishes instead to promote an assemblée of dissident feminist subjectivities.
Wild analysis, wild desires. Resistance always lies on the side of the analyst: can we re-invent a ‘minoritarian psychoanalysis of the unconscious’ that centres on the excluded other (to name a few: the feminine, the animal, nature, the racialised other, the sexual dissident, the Indigenous) within a posthuman/post-anthropocentric framework?
The conference for a Feminist psychoanalysis-to-come wishes to give back to psychoanalysis the response-ability as the ability to respond (differently). Psychoanalysis is a deeply political and ethical project since it centres around our ability to listen to, and to intervene over, psycho-social reproductions (of the power and the norm). A failing to inscribe the plural and powerful contributions of feminist praxes into the psychoanalytic vocabulary, means a losing sight of the unconscious itself.
Tickets are on sale NOW on Eventbrite – reduced price tickets are available for Site members and trainees
PROGRAMME
Friday, 21st of June, 2024
12.30 – 13.00 Registration
13.00 – 13.15 Welcome address
13.15 – 14.30 Opening Keynote: Lisa Baraitser
‘Deathly Care, Desiring Life: Revisiting the case of Harold Shipman’
Chair: Gillian Swanson
14.40 – 16.10: Misogyny and Psychoanalysis
Chair: Kati Gray
Katherine Angel
Michaela Chamberlain
Anouchka Grose
Liz Guild
16.10 – 16.30: Break
16.30 – 18.00: Feminism and the Arts
Chair: Luisa Pretolani
Alexandra Kokoli
Ruth Novaczek
Helena Reckitt and Gabrielle Moser
Anahita Rezvani
18:00 – 20.00: Drinks reception & film screening “Crime Scene” by Ruth Novaczek
Saturday, 22nd of June, 2024
10.00 – 11.15 Keynote: Jamieson Webster
‘The Maternal Psychophysical Knot’
Chairs: Andie Newman and Ana Minozzo
11.15 – 11.30: Coffee Break
11.30 – 13.00: Wild thoughts in psychoanalysis
Chair: Angie Voela
Chloe Kolyri
Chrysanthi Nigianni
Raluca Soreanu
13.00 – 14.15: Lunch
14.15 – 14.30: Artistic performance by Catherine Maffioletti and Kay Elizabeth
‘Love remains: stone walls could not have stopped the birds from circling, opening and closing their wings like hands, in prayer, they usher the polarities of the earth’
14.30 – 16.00: Freeing Psychoanalysis
Chair: Ana Minozzo
Carolina Besoain
Sara Paiola
Jéssica Rodrigues
16.00 – 16.30: Break
16.30 – 18.00: Roundtable Discussion
Chair: Andie Newman
Katherine Angel
Laura Chernaik
Kati Gray
Anouchka Grose
Haya Oakley
Joanna Ryan
SPEAKERS
Katherine Angel is the author of the internationally acclaimed Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again (Verso, 2021). Her previous books are Daddy Issues (Peninsula Press, 2019) and Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell (Penguin, 2012). Her writing has been translated into fourteen languages, and her next book is Poor Freud (forthcoming, Verso/Norton). She is a Senior Lecturer in the School of English and Drama and a Fellow of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen Mary, University of London.
Lisa Baraitser is Professor of Psychosocial Theory in the School of Social Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, a psychoanalyst in practice in London, and member of the British Psychoanalytical Society. She is the author of the award-winning monograph Maternal Encounters: The Ethics of Interruption (Routledge, 2009), and Enduring Time (Bloomsbury, 2017), and has written widely on psychoanalysis, feminism, gender and sexuality, motherhood, temporality, and ethics. From 2018-23 she was the co-Principal Investigator of Waiting Times, a Wellcome Trust funded research project investigating the relation between time and healthcare. She is currently working on an edited volume on psychoanalytic understandings of violence against women for Routledge, and a monograph, Watching Waitfully, on the relation between care and violence in post-pandemic times.
Carolina Besoain (she/her) is a Chilean psychoanalyst, feminist, and researcher studying the connections between psychoanalysis, gender studies, and intersectional feminisms. She has a BSc and PhD in Psychology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. She is a co-founder of Colectivo Trenza, a psychoanalytic organization in Santiago de Chile devoted to mixing psychoanalysis with feminism and gender studies in psychotherapeutic practice. Since 2023, she has been leading the Clinical Network of Colectivo Trenza. Currently, she is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UFRJ’s Psychoanalytical Theory Program, and she is a member of the Subjectivity and Social Change Laboratory at PUC, Chile. For contact, she can be reached at caritobesoain@gmail.com
Michaela Chamberlain trained at the Bowlby Centre and studied in the Psychoanalysis Unit at UCL. Shortly after qualifying at the Bowlby Centre in 2016, she started teaching Freud and Attachment Theory and became Chair of the Bowlby Centre. She worked as an honorary psychotherapist in two NHS Trusts for several years. She has presented clinical papers at public forums, lectures internationally and has been published in the British Journal of Psychotherapy; Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis; New Associations and The New Psychotherapist Magazine. Her book, Misogyny in Psychoanalysis, was released in June 2022, it explores the historical and current context of misogyny in psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. She is in private practice in London as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and is a supervisor and training therapist.
Laura Chernaik is a member of the Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Guild of Psychotherapists. She is a psychoanalyst in private practice, working with people with a diversity of ways of being in the world. She supervises in private practice, at the Guild of Psychotherapists’ low fee Clinic, and at AGIP. She teaches and writes on the relation between philosophical change and social and political change, as this is played out in the history of psychoanalytical theory and practice
Kay Elizabeth is a multidisciplinary artist and songwriter from the Bay Area in California, living in London. BA Ethnomusicology – SOAS / MA Performance and Culture – Goldsmiths. Front woman and rhythm guitarist in her psych/alt/rock band Black Orchids, having recently released a new EP entitled ‘The Calling’. She has also built numerous altar installations and performance pieces at galleries including the Shunt vaults and the 100 Years Gallery. Now focusing on her studies in Sound & Shamanic Healing from The College of Sound Healing.
Kati Gray has been practicing Psychoanalysis for 30 years. She has worked in the NHS all her professional life, initially in Mental Health Services and for the last 25 years within Women’s Health. She has her own practice in East London, where she analyses and supervises trainee & qualified psychoanalysts & therapists, as well as others seeking therapeutic help. She also teaches, both on Psychoanalysis trainings in London & within the NHS. Kati volunteers for a mental health service and has acted as a consultant for both Social Services and a home for looked after children.
Anouchka Grose is a writer and psychoanalyst practising in South East London. She is a member of The College of Psychoanalysts and The Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, where she regularly lectures. She has been working one-to-one since 2003. Before that she ran writing workshops for people experiencing mental health difficulties. Anouchka writes about psychoanalysis, current affairs, art and fashion, and has contributed to The Guardian, Radio 4, and Resonance FM.
Liz Guild is a founding member of The Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and is in private practice in Cambridge.
Alexandra Kokoli researches feminist artistic and activist practices. She works as Associate Professor in Visual Culture at Middlesex University and as Research Associate at VIAD, University of Johannesburg. She has published widely, including the edited collections: Feminism Reframed, Susan Hiller: The Provisional Texture of Reality (co-ed with Deborah Cherry), Art into Life: Essays on Tracey Emin
and the monograph The Feminist Uncanny in Theory and Art Practice. She co-leads the Transnational Early Career Research Network (TECReN) in Visual and Performing Arts, funded by the British Academy. Her research on Greenham Common has been supported by the Paul Mellon Centre and the Leverhulme Trust.
Chloe Kolyri MD, Phd. Psychiatrist-psychoanalyst, Queering psychoanalyst. Politics of psychoanalysis. Moderator of the Greek Society for Deleuze and Guattari Studies, Co-founder of the Greek Anti-psychiatry group.
Catherine Maffioletti blood, bodies, flora, and the ground, making-writing feminisms as an arts practitioner-researcher i make for communities in collaborations; a tangled series of unresolvable hysterical ritual performances shared in art galleries and conferences – and as a practicing activist i seek ways to challenge these normative mainstream hegemonic cultural spaces of knowledge production. as part of a practice of resistance i participate in outsider arts events that take place in industrial sites, warehouses, nightclubs, festivals, music venues, internet radio, clandestine studios on the margins of cultural transformation.
Ana Minozzo is a clinician and researcher based in London, UK. She holds a PhD and an MA in Psychosocial Studies from Birkbeck, University of London and is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in Psychosocial Studies within FREEPSY, at the University of Essex. She has experience with a number of community-based mental health services and a clinic that has unfolded in relation to the threads of psychosis, gender and sexuality and migration. Ana is a member of The Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis, in London, UK. Her research crosses the fields of medical humanities, feminist philosophy and psychosocial enquiry.
Gabrielle Moser is a writer, educator and independent curator based in Toronto. As a curator, she has organised exhibitions for Access Gallery, Gallery 44: centre for contemporary photography, Gallery TPW, the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Oakville Galleries and Vtape. Her writing appears in venues including Artforum, Art in America, C Magazine, Canadian Art, Fillip, Journal of Visual Culture, Photography & Culture, Prefix Photo and the edited volumes Photography and the Optical Unconscious (Duke 2017) and Contemporary Citizenship, Art, and Visual Culture: Making and Being Made (Routledge 2017). Her first book, Projecting Citizenship: photography and belonging in the British Empire, was published by Penn State University Press in 2019 and in 2022, along with Adrienne Huard, she co-edited a special issue of Journal of Visual Culture on repair and reparation in visual art. A founding member of EMILIA-AMALIA, she is an Associate Professor in Aesthetics and Art Education in the Faculty of Education at York University, Toronto, Canada.
Chrysanthi Nigianni is a lecturer at Goldsmiths and a member of the Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. She has published in the fields of feminist philosophy, sexuality, queer theory, continental philosophy, cinema, and ethics.
Ruth Novaczek is a film maker and poet based in London. She works with collaged ’new vernaculars’ in cosmopolitan, feminist and queer films and writing. Her work has been exhibited internationally; her website is www.ruthnovaczek.com. Her 2015 PhD thesis is entitled ‘Écriture Feminine: New Vernaculars in 21st Century Avant-Garde film’, she is a faculty member of Transart, and a freelance editor.
Haya Oakley has been in private practice in London since1969. She was a member of the PA for 28 years and has been a member of the Guild of Psychotherapists since 1982. She chaired the Guild and the training committee on which she served for 19 years. She founded with others The College of Psychoanalysts UK and the Site for Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Honorary Fellow of UKCP where she served on Council and as chair of the Psychoanalytic Section. Haya contributed to a number of publications.
Sara Paiola is an Associate Tutor at the School of Law, Birkbeck, University of London. She holds a BA in Social, Cultural and Creative Studies from Goldsmiths, University of London and a Master Research in Human Rights and Law from the School of Law, Birkbeck. In 2021 she was awarded a PhD from the same faculty. Her research is focused on relational feminist models of caregiving which de-individualises care. She is interested, among others, in Italian feminism, psychoanalysis, decoloniality, the maternal, ethics of care and the work of reproduction. In addition, she has a long-term keen interest in socio-cratic, self-directed, consent-based and nature immersed education and their link to children’s rights. She has been an intern at MamSIE (Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics) and its attached journal Studies in the Maternal. For several years she worked in the charity sector supporting refugee children and subsequently mothers, and their children, affected by domestic and gender violence.
Helena Reckitt has worked as an exhibitions and public programmes curator, lecturer, and academic editor in the UK, Canada, and the US. She is currently Reader in Curating in the Art Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her long-standing interest in legacies of feminist and queer art, thought and collectivity is reflected across her various activities and projects. She is editor of the books Art and Feminism (Phaidon Press), Acting on AIDS (Serpent’s Tail), and Sanja Ivekovic: Unknown Heroine, A Reader (Calvert 22), and Consultant Editor for The Art of Feminism: The Images that Shaped the Fight for Equality (Chronicle and Tate Publishing). With Jennifer Fisher in 2015/2016 she edited two issues of the Journal of Curatorial Studies on affect, curating, and relationality. In 2022 she edited ‘Instituting Feminism,’ an issue of the journal OnCurating, with Dorothee Richter. Reckitt has curated group exhibitions including ‘Habits of Care,’ ‘Getting Rid of Ourselves’ ‘Not Quite How I Remember It,’ and ‘What Business Are You In?, and solo exhibitions with artists including Keren Cytter, Manon de Boer, and (with Jon Davies) Ryan Trecartin. In 2015 Reckitt initiated the Feminist Duration Reading Group, a monthly meeting dedicated to the collective exploration of under-represented feminisms from outside the Anglo-American feminist canon. The fdrg currently collaborates with Cell Project Space on the British Art Network-funded CEED (Central and East European Diaspora) Feminisms network, and is in residence at Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art. The group is participating in the 2024 60th October Salon in Belgrade, ‘Hope Is A Discipline.’ www.feministuration.com
Anahita Rezvani lives and works in London, Vienna. Born 1978, Tehran. Critically acclaimed artist working primarily in painting and regularly exhibiting in solo and group exhibitions. Studied at the Courtauld and Chelsea College of Art and University of applied arts Vienna (de Angewandte). She has worked as a studio assistant to Bill Woodrow RA for more than a decade. PhD Candidate: at de Angewandte Wien. Examining the role of painting in shaping and archiving collective memory via artistic research. Twice selected for: The Best of London’s Emerging Artists. Curated by Kay Saatchi. London. Twice selected to exhibit at the drawing Biennale and the fundraising Auction. Artist in residence at the Association “Les Ateliers du Plessix-Madeuc” France. Artist in residence at the printmaking lab at the Montefiore Conca Italy. Visiting speaker at the Wimbledon college of art London. Guest speaker at the Academician’s room at Royal Academy of Arts London. Guest speaker at The Arts Club London on How the Art World stands in solidarity with Iran, Feb 2023. Speaker at the Why remember conference Sarajevo 2019; Border poetics and politics. Speaker at the Why remember conference Sarajevo 2022; Tracing the past, Speaker at the research week 2020 de Angewandte Vienna. Speaker at the Tate Podcast series on the art of protest. Speaker at the Tate Podcast series on the art of belonging. Shortlisted for: DLA Piper Award. Sarah Myerscough Fine Art. London. One of six shortlisted. Selected for: The most promising MA graduates of 2006. Nomoregrey Galley. London.
Jéssica Rodrigues is a Professor of Philosophy at State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. She is a member of the Metaphysics and Politics Study Group – (GEMP) from Unicamp, of the Luiz Gama Study Group (GELG) at UFRB, of the Brazilian Network of Women Scientists (RBMC), and of the Group of Feminist studies, research and writings (GEPEF). Her research includes black feminism, epistemology, psychoanalysis, History of Philosophy of Nature, Early modern and Critical Race theory.
Joanna Ryan is a retired psychoanalytic psychotherapist and writer, lifelong feminist, and a founder of the Site. Her publications include Class and Psychoanalysis: Landscapes of Inequality (2017), and, with Noreen O’Connor, Wild Desires and Mistaken Identities: Lesbianism and Psychoanalysis (1993, 2003)
Raluca Soreanu is a psychoanalytic and psychosocial thinker and writer. She is Professor of Psychoanalytic Studies in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, and psychoanalyst, member of the Círculo Psicanalítico do Rio de Janeiro. She is the project lead of FREEPSY: Free Clinics and a Psychoanalysis for the People: Progressive Histories, Collective Practices, Implications for Our Times (UKRI Frontier Research Grant), Academic Associate of The Freud Museum London and Editor of the Studies in the Psychosocial series at Palgrave.
Jamieson Webster is a psychoanalyst in New York City. She is the author of Disorganisation & Sex (Divided, 2022), The Life and Death of Psychoanalysis (Karnac, 2011) and Conversion Disorder (Columbia University Press, 2018); she also co-wrote, with Simon Critchley, Stay, Illusion! The Hamlet Doctrine (Pantheon, 2013). She contributes regularly to Artforum, The New York Times and the New York Review of Books.
“Wild Thoughts” Program and bios (downloadable)
Programme and Bios WILD THOUGHTS- for a Feminist psychoanalysis-to-come