About this event

Dates: Thursdays 7pm - 8:30pm, on the 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th November and 3rd December.

A series of five online seminars with Josh Cohen.

This series will be recorded and available to participants for 1 week after each seminar.

What is the death drive? Why has it proved so controversial and so influential, not only within psychoanalysis but in the modern histories of art and thought? In this series of five seminars, we will explore the development of the concept in Freud from its introduction in Beyond the Pleasure Principle to its final developments in Civilization and Its Discontents and An Outline of Psychoanalysis. Alongside Freud, we will examine some key psychoanalytic writings on the death drive, including papers by Andre Green, Jean Laplanche and Jonathan Lear. These will in turn be read alongside selections from modern literature, cinema and painting.

Josh Cohen is a British psychoanalyst, academic and author whose work brings together psychoanalysis, literature and contemporary culture. Born in London, where he has spent most of his life, he first established himself as a scholar of American literature and critical theory before training as a psychoanalyst and becoming a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society. Between 1996 and 2024, he taught in the English department at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he was appointed Professor of Modern Literary Theory in 2010. His acclaimed books explore subjects including privacy, work, meritocracy, anger and failure through the lenses of psychoanalysis, culture and personal experience, and include How to Read Freud, The Private Life: Why We Remain in the Dark, Not Working: Why We Have to Stop, How to Live. What to Do: How Great Novels Help Us Change and Losers. His essays and reviews have appeared in publications including The Guardian, New Statesman, Granta, Aeon, 1843 and the Times Literary Supplement, and he is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Registration is for the full series and cannot be booked for standalone seminars.

REFUND POLICY: Full refunds are offered for cancellations made before 14 days before the event date or first day of an event or series. For full event booking terms and conditions click here.

Concession tickets are available, for students, BPAS candidates and NHS trainees and nurses. Please email [email protected] if you are unsure if you qualify for a concession ticket.

Views and opinions expressed by speakers are their own and do not represent the views or opinions of the Institute, event organisers or other speakers. We expect delegates to respect the confidentiality of clinical material discussed in our events. The content must not be recorded, conveyed or disseminated in any format and participants must not share access to the event with non-registered participants.

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