Events
Cosponsors
- New York Area Consortium for Intellectual and Cultural History
- Columbia University Seminar on British History
- The Psychoanalytic Studies Program at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society
- The Remarque Institute, New York University
- The NCJW Women and Gender Studies Program and the History Department, Tel-Aviv University
- University Seminars at Columbia
Notes
- Free and open to the public
Seating is available on a first come first serve basis.

Organized by Prof. Michal Shapira, Tel Aviv University, and cosponsored by the New York Area Consortium for Intellectual and Cultural History.
Despite the continuous interest in psychoanalysis as a modern system of thought and interpretation, the history of the discipline and the study of analysts other than Sigmund Freud are still developing. This two-day conference will bring together historians, gender studies scholars, and psychoanalysts to explore the impact of the Second World War on psychoanalysis in the post-1945 era, and of psychoanalysis itself on different postwar societies and cultures. The conference will try to examine the question regarding the special relationship that psychoanalysis had with democracy and with democratization in the postwar period. More broadly, the conference will also reopen the question of how to do the history of psychoanalysis, with what archives, and which methodologies. The event will continue the discussion from a first conference in London (organized by Daniel Pick and Matt Ffytche in 2013) focusing on psychoanalysis in the age of totalitarianism and the Second World War. The London conference generated great interest from scholars across fields, and we will continue this discussion at the Heyman Center, Columbia University, 4-5 April 2014.
Presentations will be 20-minutes arranged in panels, followed by discussion, all in a plenary format
For questions please email [email protected].
Program
time8:45am - 9:30am EDT
Gathering and Introductions
time9:25am - 10:30am EDT
From War to Postwar
Chair
Michal Shapira
Senior Lecturer of History and Gender Studies
Tel Aviv University
"Questions of Brainwashing in the Age of Totalitarianism: From the Pursuit of the Nazi Mind to Cold War 'Thought Reform'"
Daniel Pick
Professor of History
Birkbeck College, University of London
time10:30am - 10:45am EDT
Break I
time10:45am - 12:45pm EDT
Panel 1: Postwar and Post-Colonialism
Chair
Susan Pedersen
Gouverneur Morris Professor of British History
Columbia University
"Between Postfascism and Postcolonialism: The Ethnopsychoanalysis of Paul Parin, Fritz Morgenthaler, and Goldy Parin-Matthèy"
Dagmar Herzog
Distinguished Professor of History
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
"Minds after Empire: British Experts and the Postcolonial Personality"
Erik Linstrum
Assistant Professor of History
University of Virginia
"French Radical Psychiatry and the Disoccupation of the Mind"
Camille Robcis
Assistant Professor of History
Cornell University
time12:45pm - 1:45pm EDT
Break II
time1:45pm - 3:00pm EDT
Panel 2: New Traditions and New Horizons
Chair
Bonnie Smith
Board of Governors Professor of History
Rutgers University
"Heinz Kohut and Erik Erikson: American Psychoanalysts"
Elizabeth Lunbeck
Nelson Tyrone, Jr Professor of History and Professor of Psychiatry
Vanderbilt University
"Democratizing Psychoanalysis in Postwar Britain and America"
Peter Mandler
Professor of Modern Cultural History, Bailey College Lecturer in History, Gonville and Caius College
University of Cambridge
time3:00pm - 3:30pm EDT
Break III
time3:30pm - 5:30pm EDT
Panel 3: Contextualizing Psychoanalysis and it Postwar Uses
Chair
Samuel Moyn
Professor of Law
Harvard University
"Psychoanalysis and the Paradoxes of Enlightenment"
George Makari
Director of the DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Professor of Psychiatry
Weill Medical College of Cornell University
"Psychoanalysis as Holocaust Survivor"
Lewis Aron
Director of Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis
New York University
"Anxiety Weaponized: Dread in the Era of Cold War Politics"
Simon Taylor
PhD Candidate in History
Columbia University
time9:00am - 9:30am EDT
Gathering and Introductions
time9:30am - 11:00am EDT
Panel 1: Postwar Tensions; Pioneer Psychoanalysts
Chair
Moshe Sluhovsky
Vigevani Professor of European Studies
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
"'Communist,' 'Queer' and 'Mentally Twisted': J. Edgar Hoover's Demonization of Psychoanalysis"
Elizabeth Danto
Professor of Social Work
Hunter College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York
"Politics in a New Psychoanalytic Key in the Work of Robert J. Stoller: Sexual Excitement, Perversions and Gender"
John Forrester
Professor of History and Philosophy of Science
University of Cambridge
"The Jet-Propelled Couch: Robert Lindner and Postwar Psychoanalysis"
Ben Kafka
Associate Professor of Media Theory and History
New York University
time11:15am - 11:30am EDT
Break I
time11:30am - 1:00pm EDT
Panel 2: The Freud Museums in Vienna and London
Chair
Katja Guenther
Assistant Professor of History
Princeton University
"The Sigmund Freud Museum in London and its Archives"
Carol Seigel
Director
Freud Museum, London
"The Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna and its Archives"
Rubén Gallo
Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures
Princeton University
time1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
Break II
time2:00pm - 3:45pm EDT
Panel 3: Psychoanalysis and Social Life
Chair
Guy Ortolano
Associate Professor of History
New York University
"Paying Attention with Marion Milner"
David Russell
Fellow and Tutor, Associate Professor of English
Corpus Christi College Oxford
"Society without The Father: Psychoanalytic Authority in Postwar Sociology"
Matt ffytche
Deputy Director of the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies
University of Essex
"The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child (the Journal): A Narrative of Postwar Psychoanalysis"
Nellie Thompson
Historian and Curator
New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute
Presenting jointly with Nellie Thompson
Helene Keable
Training and Supervising Analyst
New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute
time3:45pm - 4:15pm EDT
Break III
time4:15pm - 5:15pm EDT
Interview and Final Comments
Chair
Eli Zaretsky
Professor of History
The New School
Daniel Pick
Professor of History
Birkbeck College, University of London
Robert Jay Lifton
Lecturer in Psychiatry
Columbia University
Final Comments
Michal Shapira
Senior Lecturer of History and Gender Studies
Tel Aviv University
Participants
- Lewis Aron Director of Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis New York University
- Elizabeth Danto Professor of Social Work Hunter College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York
- Matt ffytche Deputy Director of the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies University of Essex
- John Forrester Professor of History and Philosophy of Science University of Cambridge
- Rubén Gallo Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures Princeton University
- Katja Guenther Assistant Professor of History Princeton University
- Dagmar Herzog Distinguished Professor of History The Graduate Center, City University of New York
- Ben Kafka Associate Professor of Media Theory and History New York University
- Gerald Izenberg Professor Emeritus, Department of History Washington University in St. Louis
- Helene Keable Training and Supervising Analyst New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute
- Robert Jay Lifton Lecturer in Psychiatry Columbia University
- Erik Linstrum Assistant Professor of History University of Virginia
- Elizabeth Lunbeck Nelson Tyrone, Jr Professor of History and Professor of Psychiatry Vanderbilt University
- George Makari Director of the DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Professor of Psychiatry Weill Medical College of Cornell University
- Peter Mandler Professor of Modern Cultural History, Bailey College Lecturer in History, Gonville and Caius College University of Cambridge
- Samuel Moyn Professor of Law Harvard University
- Guy Ortolano Associate Professor of History New York University
- Susan Pedersen Gouverneur Morris Professor of British History Columbia University
- Daniel Pick Professor of History Birkbeck College, University of London
- Camille Robcis Assistant Professor of History Cornell University
- David Russell Fellow and Tutor, Associate Professor of English Corpus Christi College Oxford
- Carol Seigel Director Freud Museum, London
- Michal Shapira Senior Lecturer of History and Gender Studies Tel Aviv University
- Moshe Sluhovsky Vigevani Professor of European Studies The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Bonnie Smith Board of Governors Professor of History Rutgers University
- Simon Taylor PhD Candidate in History Columbia University
- Nellie Thompson Historian and Curator New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute
- Eli Zaretsky Professor of History The New School