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October 18, 2006
Contact: Deborah Baum
(401) 863-2476

Cogut Center for the Humanities
Humanities Weekend Focuses on Work, Legacy of Sigmund Freud

International scholars, musicians and students will gather at Brown University to celebrate the second annual Fall Humanities Weekend, sponsored by the Cogut Center for the Humanities, Oct. 26-28, 2006. This year’s event will focus on the work of the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud and his impact on the humanities. All of the symposia, performances and screenings are free and open to the public.


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PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The Cogut Center for the Humanities at Brown University will hold its second annual Fall Humanities Weekend from Thursday, Oct. 26 to Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006. This year’s landmark conference will focus on the work and legacy of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis on the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Freud

Ten international scholars and four Brown University students in multiple fields will offer scholarly papers. A film festival will highlight historic and current cinema from the United States and abroad in which psychoanalysis plays a key role. The weekend will conclude with a concert called “Dreams” – an evening of European song as originally curated for the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City. All of the performances, workshops and screenings are free and open to the public. Pre-registration is required only for the lunches and concert.

“From Vienna to Hollywood, no one thinks without Freud,” said Michael Steinberg, professor of history and music and inaugural director of the Cogut Center. “Some think with him and some against him, and the resulting debates are always interesting and important. This year’s Fall Humanities Weekend will bring together scholars from multiple fields who think about culture, race, politics, religion, war, health, art and other themes in powerful and original ways. The accompanying film festival and concluding multimedia song recital will place scholarship into an important dialogue with the arts.”

The Cogut Center, established by the University in 2005, supports research and collaboration among scholars in the humanities, focusing on interdisciplinary and comparative work across cultural and linguistic boundaries. Its mission is achieved through fellowship programs, faculty working groups, conferences, symposia, seminars, lectures, exhibits, performances and screenings.

Fall Humanities Weekend

Friday, October 27
Crystal Room, Alumnae Hall

9 a.m. – Welcome and Introduction, Michael Steinberg, Cogut Center for the Humanities

9:30 a.m. – Session I

  • Freud, Jews and Other Humanists
    Scott Spector, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • The Space of Sublimation in the Jewish Law: Freud’s Moses and Monotheism Revisited
    
Tracy McNulty, Cornell University
  • Sigmund Freud: Savant or Charlatan?
    Peter Kramer, Brown University




12 p.m. - 
Lunch break, Alumnae Hall Auditorium**

1:30 p.m. – Session II

  • Rebecca West at Nuremberg: Guilt after Freud
    Lyndsey Stonebridge, University of East Anglia
  • Trauma, Witnessing and the Sublime
    Dominick LaCapra, Cornell University
  • War and Projection
    James Hopkins, King’s College London 




4:30 p.m. – Student Session

  • Towards a Tentative Theory of Fanfiction
    Tasha Chemel, Brown University
  • Original Drive
    Jonathan Coleman, Brown University
  • The Uncanny Re-Pression of Transference in Analysis
    Jessica Laser, Brown University
  • Show Me Yours: The Perversion and Politics of Cyber-Exhibitionism
    Julie Levin Russo, Brown University

Saturday, October 28
Smith-Buonanno Hall, Room 106

10 a.m. – Session I

  • Roman Fever: Freud Looks at Italy
    Mary Bergstein, Rhode Island School of Design
  • Fabric, Skin, Honte-ologie
    Ranjana Khanna, Duke University

12 p.m. - 
Lunch break, Smith-Buonanno Hall Lounge**

1:30 p.m. – Session II

  • Josephine Baker: Psychoanalysis and the Colonial Fetish

    Anne Cheng, Princeton University
  • The Real and the Uncanny of the Dream of Cinema: Traumatic Performance as Reenactment and Possession in Fiction and Documentary Film
    Elizabeth Cowie, University of Kent

4 – 5:30 p.m. – Panel Discussion

9 p.m. – The Hope Club, 6 Benevolent St.

  • Dreams Concert, a multimedia piece for piano and voice, featuring pianist Thomas Bagwell and singers Meagan Miller and Richard Cox.

** The lunches and concert are free of charge but require pre-registration to attend. To register, please contact the Cogut Center at (401) 863-6070 or [email protected].

The Freud Film Festival

Thursday, October 26
Smith-Buonanno Hall, Room 106

  • 7 p.m. Princess Tam-Tam (1935)



  • 8:30 p.m. Mulholland Drive (2001)

Friday, October 27
List Art Center, Room 120

  • 7 p.m. Seven Percent Solution (1976)
  • 9 p.m. Spellbound (1945)

Saturday, October 28
Smith-Buonanno Hall, Room 106

  • 7 p.m. Persona (1967)
  • 8:30 p.m. Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959)

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