Joan Copjec | |
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| Born | 1946 (age 77–78) |
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| Institutions | Brown University |
Joan K. Copjec (born 1946) is an American philosopher,theorist,author,feminist,and prominent American Lacanian psychoanalytic theorist. She is Professor of Modern Culture &Media at Brown University. [1]
Joan K. Copjec was born in Hartford,Connecticut in 1946;her family is of Czech ancestry. [2] She received her bachelor's degree in English literature,with a minor in Classics,in 1968 from Wheaton College. She received her master's degree in English in 1969 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and began her doctoral work there,with a minor in Film in 1972. Abandoning her original Ph.D. dissertation project,she continued pursuing her film interests from 1972-1974 at the Orson Welles Film School,an operation of the Orson Welles Cinema,in Cambridge,Massachusetts. In 1978,she received a two-year graduate diploma from the Film Unit of the Slade School of Fine Arts at University College,London. In 1986,she completed her Ph.D. in Cinema Studies at New York University. [3]
Prior to beginning her position at Brown University in 2013,she was a visiting associate professor in English,an associated professor in Cinema and Media Studies,and a Distinguished Professor in Cinema and Media Studies,all at the State University of New York University at Buffalo,from 1989 to 2013. From 1991 to 2013,she also served as the Director of the Center for Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture,also at Buffalo. She has served as editor or co-editor for several academic journals and book series,including October (1981–1992) and Umbr(a),which she co-founded. [3]
Copjec has been a strong proponent of the power of psychoanalytic theory,especially as articulated by Jacques Lacan and in reference to film study,as she noted in a set of email interviews in 2014–2014,just before her move to Brown University:
I find that from my background in psychoanalysis with its singular arsenal of concepts –the unconscious,drive,fantasy, jouissance ,repression,disavowal,foreclosure,and so on –I ask different kinds of questions,look for different sets of details or notice their absence than someone without a Freudian/Lacanian perspective. To give an old but canonical example:we used to point out that with the introduction of psychoanalysis into film theory the axis of investigation was shifted away from a focus on the narrative to the axis of the spectator-screen relation;the question became:How is the spectator "sutured" into the film? A shift of this order,of this magnitude is always at work when one approaches an object from the perspective of psychoanalysis. [4]
In that same set of interviews,she marks her psychoanalytic position as distinct from the premises of gender theory:
Much of my current work is focused on salvaging sex and sexual difference (as they are understood by Freudian/Lacanian psychoanalysis) from the threat of extinction. This has lead[ sic ] me to try to rearticulate a robust notion of "group psychology" or "community" and to oppose what is called "gender theory," a phenomenon that emerged in the 80s not only in the West but also in the Islamic world and that sets as its goal the elimination of sexual difference. [4]
That position was reaffirmed in another interview in 2020:
Identity politics is as much,or more,of an anathema to psychoanalysis as it was to Foucault. The subject is not identical to itself and all attempts to think of the subject,or a group,or the human,as self-identical leads inevitably to establishing a boundary on the other side of which are those we do not like because they are not like us. The establishing of strong boundaries is what ego psychology recommends;it is also the protective gesture of identity politics. Establishing a politics on the basis of identity is not only reckless politically,it is also theoretically unfounded:identity is a fiction. [5]
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud",Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris,from 1953 to 1981,and published papers that were later collected in the book Écrits. Transcriptions of his seminars,given between 1954 and 1976,were also published. His work made a significant impact on continental philosophy and cultural theory in areas such as post-structuralism,critical theory,feminist theory and film theory,as well as on the practice of psychoanalysis itself.
Psychoanalytic literary criticism is literary criticism or literary theory that,in method,concept,or form,is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud.
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies,concerning women,feminism,gender,and politics. The field now overlaps with queer studies and men's studies. Its rise to prominence,especially in Western universities after 1990,coincided with the rise of deconstruction.
Psychoanalytic film theory is a school of academic thought that evokes the concepts of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. The theory is closely tied to Critical theory,Marxist film theory,and Apparatus theory. The theory is separated into two waves. The first wave occurred in the 1960s and 70s. The second wave became popular in the 1980s and 90s.
The mirror stage is a concept in the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan. The mirror stage is based on the belief that infants recognize themselves in a mirror (literal) or other symbolic contraption which induces apperception from the age of about six months.
Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist and filmmaker. She was educated at St Hilda's College,Oxford. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck,University of London. She previously taught at Bulmershe College,the London College of Printing,the University of East Anglia,and the British Film Institute.
Jouissance is a French language term held untranslatable into English.
Identification refers to the automatic,subconscious psychological process in which an individual becomes like or closely associates themselves with another person by adopting one or more of the others' perceived personality traits,physical attributes,or some other aspect of their identity. The concept of identification was founded by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud in the 1920’s,and has since been expanded on and applied in psychology,social studies,media studies,and literary and film criticism. In literature,identification most often refers to the audience identifying with a fictional character,however it can also be employed as a narrative device whereby one character identifies with another character within the text itself.
The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis is the 1978 English-language translation of a seminar held by Jacques Lacan. The original was published in Paris by Le Seuil in 1973. The Seminar was held at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris between January and June 1964 and is the eleventh in the series of The Seminar of Jacques Lacan. The text was published by Jacques-Alain Miller.
"The Instance of the Letter in the Unconscious,or Reason Since Freud" is an essay by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan,originally delivered as a talk on May 9,1957 and later published in Lacan's 1966 book Écrits.
The Fright of Real Tears:Krzysztof Kieślowski Between Theory and Post-Theory is a 2001 book by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek which uses free associative film interpretation to tangentially examine the films of Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski while avoiding the debate between cognitive film theory and psychoanalytic film theory. It was published by the British Film Institute in 2001.
Shoshana Felman is an American literary critic and current Woodruff Professor of Comparative Literature and French at Emory University. She was on the faculty of Yale University from 1970 to 2004,where in 1986 she was awarded the Thomas E. Donnelly Professorship of French and Comparative Literature. She specializes in 19th and 20th century French literature,psychoanalysis,trauma and testimony,and law and literature. Felman earned her Ph.D. at the University of Grenoble in France in 1970.
Psychoanalytic sociology is the research field that analyzes society using the same methods that psychoanalysis applies to analyze an individual.
Yannis Stavrakakis is a Greek–British political theorist. A member of the Essex School of discourse analysis,he is mainly known for his explorations of the importance of psychoanalytic theory for contemporary political and cultural analysis and for his discourse studies on populism.
A. Kiarina Kordela is a Greek-American philosopher and critical theorist. She is a professor of German Studies and founding director of the Critical Theory Program at Macalester College in Saint Paul,MN.
Lacanianism or Lacanian psychoanalysis is a theoretical system that explains the mind,behaviour,and culture through a structuralist and post-structuralist extension of classical psychoanalysis,initiated by the work of Jacques Lacan from the 1950s to the 1980s. Lacanian perspectives contend that the human mind is structured by the world of language,known as the Symbolic. They stress the importance of desire,which is conceived of as perpetual and impossible to satisfy. Contemporary Lacanianism is characterised by a broad range of thought and extensive debate among Lacanians.
Lorenzo Chiesa is a philosopher,critical theorist,translator,and professor whose academic research and works focus on the intersection between ontology,psychoanalysis,and political theory.
Bruce Fink is an American Lacanian psychoanalyst and a major translator of Jacques Lacan. He is the author of numerous books on Lacan and Lacanian psychoanalysis,prominent among which are Lacan to the Letter:Reading Écrits Closely,The Lacanian Subject:Between Language and Jouissance (1995),Lacan on Love:An Exploration of Lacan's Seminar VIII and A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis:Theory and Technique.
Jennifer Friedlander is an American cultural studies scholar.
Parveen Adams is a British psychoanalytic theorist and feminist. She was a cofounder,editor and contributor to the British socialist feminist journal m/f. Since then she has moved to apply psychoanalytic notions to art criticism.
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