Faculty Bookwatch: New Books in the Mind Sciences

Great minds think about the mind! Join us for a roundtable discussion with three faculty authors who have just published new books about the history of the mind sciences that raise provocative questions about what it means to study the psyche in the twenty-first century. Their unique but intersecting work shows how psychoanalysis and the classification of psychological disorders not only reshaped clinical treatment but also transformed ideas about politics, economics, and even consciousness, while changes in the modern world, in turn, changed psychoanalysis in theory and practice. Part of a clinical turn in critical thought, these books highlight the surprising implications of changes in the way mental life has been scientifically studied and represented, from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first. Their insights complicate and challenge scholarly work in a range of disciplines from literary theory to the history of science to political philosophy.

Accompanying the three authors to participate in the conversation are three Duke graduate students working in related humanities fields.

The conversation will continue in a Q&A session, book signing, and reception to follow the roundtable.

SPEAKERS

Cate Reilly, Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor, Program in Literature, author of Psychic Empire: Literary Modernism and the Clinical State (Columbia University Press, 2024).

Nima Bassiri, Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor, Program in Literature, author of Madness and Enterprise: Psychiatry, Economic Reason, and the Emergence of Pathological Value (University of Chicago Press, 2024).

Carolyn Laubender, Associate Professor, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex; Visiting Professor, Program in Literature; and author of The Political Clinic: Psychoanalysis and Social Change in the Twentieth Century (Columbia University Press, 2024).

RESPONDENTS

Britt Edelen, PhD candidate in English literature.

Zeena Yasmine Fuleihan, PhD candidate in the Program in Literature and Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies.

Mike Sockol, PhD candidate in the Program in Literature and Media Studies.

Co-hosted by the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute and the Duke Libraries. Co-sponsored by the Publishing Humanities Initiative.

RSVP at https://NewBooksintheMindSciences.eventbrite.com