The Center for Literature and Psychoanalysis was founded through
an Academic Challenge Grant in 1986 for the purposes of promoting faculty development,
enhancing the training of graduate students, and enhancing the research profile
of the English Department and the University, as well as to develop other initiatives
that might benefit the University, the local and regional communities, and the
people of the state of Ohio.
During the years since its founding, the Center has assumed a leadership role
in developing psychologically and socially beneficial interactions between psychoanalysis
and the study of culture and society. We wish to build on this foundation in ways
that will strengthen our department, enhance the University's national and international
stature, and, most importantly, promote important social benefits through the
appropriation of psychoanalytic theory for cultural analysis and for education.
CPL
Mission Statement
At a time when psychoanalytic theories of gender, race, and
class have immediate and timely applications in our culture-local, national, and
international-our Center's clinical foundations and international ties place it
in a role of leadership in this important and rapidly developing field. We wish
to continue the Center's commitment to promoting the personal and social benefits
of culture through the psychoanalytic investigation of the role played by culture-and
by the teaching and analysis of cultural artifacts-in psychological change and
in those social changes that are entailed by these psychological changes. This
mission is threefold. It includes:
1. Promoting the production and dissemination of new knowledge
concerning the psychological effects of culture, with particular attention to
the psychological changes that might be fostered by the study of literature and
other discourses and cultural phenomena.
2. Promoting the adaptation and utilization of such knowledge
in ways that benefit our students and society at large, with particular attention
to ways in which our own activity as teachers, scholars, and cultural analysts
might be adapted (e.g., through new pedagogical materials and methods, or new
areas or modes of scholarly inquiry, cultural analysis, or dissemination of knowledge)
to promote greater tolerance and justice in our increasingly global and culturally
diverse society.
3. To promote continued dialogue between clinicians and psychoanalytically
oriented scholars in the humanities and social sciences, as a way of achieving
the first two goals as well as fostering interdisciplinary communication and collaboration
in the rapidly expanding field of cultural studies.
Contact Information
For information about the Center for Psychoanalysis &
Literature, contact:
