The history of courage here refers to the various meanings the term has taken on as a word, conce... more The history of courage here refers to the various meanings the term has taken on as a word, concept, and indicator of cultural beliefs during successive periods of history within the Western tradition. Understood in this way, courage is less an easily identifiable type of human action or aspect of character than a concept that has (1) been the object of extensive philosophical and intellectual enquiry, such that it is a branch of the broader history of ideas and (2) has been radically redefined and reconceived at different points in its history in ways that reflect the value system and general worldview of the culture then reckoning with courage in its literature and art, philosophy and science, religion and politics. According to this hermeneutic, each culture defines courage for its own ideological purposes and according to prevailing cultural beliefs and attitudes.
I was twenty seven or twenty eight years old before I put two and two together and realized that ... more I was twenty seven or twenty eight years old before I put two and two together and realized that psychoanalysis and the unconscious have a lot to do with another. To that point in my life, and this continues to be overwhelmingly true to this day, psychoanalysis was not a set of theories proposed by Freud, and it had nothing to do with the various drives, functions, and positions that are found in almost all psychoanalytic writing.
This is a chapter from my book Beyond Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Between Literature and M... more This is a chapter from my book Beyond Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Between Literature and Mind (Routledge 2018).
This paper describes why a psychoanalytic approach to literature often seems, to those working fr... more This paper describes why a psychoanalytic approach to literature often seems, to those working from within literature, to overlook or fail to appreciate what is inimitable and irreplaceable about literature. The paper does this by identifying an underlying rationale within the field of psychoanalytic literary criticism that governs how psychoanalysis is brought to bear on literature. This rationale detracts from what can be expressed about psychoanalysis in psychoanalytic literary criticism, and restrains literature within formulations that make it impossible to preserve what is most vital and irreducible about literature. How the Field of Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism Defines Itself Underlying the field of psychoanalytic literary criticism is, I find, a fairly consistent logic, one that must be confronted if the field of psychoanalytic literary criticism is to understand the rationale that determines its relationship to literature. This logic motivates even those works of analytic criticism that have attempted to move away from the more pathological, allegorical readings of literature that were common between sixty and ninety years ago.
The Good Story is a collection of email exchanges between novelist J.M. Coetzee and Arabella Kurt... more The Good Story is a collection of email exchanges between novelist J.M. Coetzee and Arabella Kurtz, a clinical psychologist currently completing the psychotherapy training program at the Tavistock Clinic. Their correspondence , which began in 2008, concerns matters broadly relating to literature and psychoanalysis, though each narrows their respective fields considerably. Coetzee does so by turning his attention to how fictional narratives are constructed and the relationship this may have to how patients and therapists construct narratives about themselves and each other in analysis, Kurtz by generally adhering to a theoretically orthodox, primarily Freudian view of psychoanalysis. The point of the book is, we gather, to witness how a novelist and a psychoanalyst sound and think when discussing matters of the greatest importance to both: namely, the stories human beings tell about themselves and others in an effort to describe what it is like for them (and others) to be a human being in conflict, and why and how such stories correspond with or diverge from historical or emotional truths. Coetzee, never having been in analysis himself, never having had clinical training of any kind, plays the part of curious amateur to Kurtz's wizened professional. In each of the eleven chapters of the book, Coetzee writes first, proposing questions and lines of inquiry to which Kurtz responds as psychoanalyst. The
The history of courage here refers to the various meanings the term has taken on as a word, conce... more The history of courage here refers to the various meanings the term has taken on as a word, concept, and indicator of cultural beliefs during successive periods of history within the Western tradition. Understood in this way, courage is less an easily identifiable type of human action or aspect of character than a concept that has (1) been the object of extensive philosophical and intellectual enquiry, such that it is a branch of the broader history of ideas and (2) has been radically redefined and reconceived at different points in its history in ways that reflect the value system and general worldview of the culture then reckoning with courage in its literature and art, philosophy and science, religion and politics. According to this hermeneutic, each culture defines courage for its own ideological purposes and according to prevailing cultural beliefs and attitudes.
I was twenty seven or twenty eight years old before I put two and two together and realized that ... more I was twenty seven or twenty eight years old before I put two and two together and realized that psychoanalysis and the unconscious have a lot to do with another. To that point in my life, and this continues to be overwhelmingly true to this day, psychoanalysis was not a set of theories proposed by Freud, and it had nothing to do with the various drives, functions, and positions that are found in almost all psychoanalytic writing.
This is a chapter from my book Beyond Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Between Literature and M... more This is a chapter from my book Beyond Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Between Literature and Mind (Routledge 2018).
This paper describes why a psychoanalytic approach to literature often seems, to those working fr... more This paper describes why a psychoanalytic approach to literature often seems, to those working from within literature, to overlook or fail to appreciate what is inimitable and irreplaceable about literature. The paper does this by identifying an underlying rationale within the field of psychoanalytic literary criticism that governs how psychoanalysis is brought to bear on literature. This rationale detracts from what can be expressed about psychoanalysis in psychoanalytic literary criticism, and restrains literature within formulations that make it impossible to preserve what is most vital and irreducible about literature. How the Field of Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism Defines Itself Underlying the field of psychoanalytic literary criticism is, I find, a fairly consistent logic, one that must be confronted if the field of psychoanalytic literary criticism is to understand the rationale that determines its relationship to literature. This logic motivates even those works of analytic criticism that have attempted to move away from the more pathological, allegorical readings of literature that were common between sixty and ninety years ago.
The Good Story is a collection of email exchanges between novelist J.M. Coetzee and Arabella Kurt... more The Good Story is a collection of email exchanges between novelist J.M. Coetzee and Arabella Kurtz, a clinical psychologist currently completing the psychotherapy training program at the Tavistock Clinic. Their correspondence , which began in 2008, concerns matters broadly relating to literature and psychoanalysis, though each narrows their respective fields considerably. Coetzee does so by turning his attention to how fictional narratives are constructed and the relationship this may have to how patients and therapists construct narratives about themselves and each other in analysis, Kurtz by generally adhering to a theoretically orthodox, primarily Freudian view of psychoanalysis. The point of the book is, we gather, to witness how a novelist and a psychoanalyst sound and think when discussing matters of the greatest importance to both: namely, the stories human beings tell about themselves and others in an effort to describe what it is like for them (and others) to be a human being in conflict, and why and how such stories correspond with or diverge from historical or emotional truths. Coetzee, never having been in analysis himself, never having had clinical training of any kind, plays the part of curious amateur to Kurtz's wizened professional. In each of the eleven chapters of the book, Coetzee writes first, proposing questions and lines of inquiry to which Kurtz responds as psychoanalyst. The
The fourth issue of Palaver: A Journal of Ideas. This edition contains a series of conversation o... more The fourth issue of Palaver: A Journal of Ideas. This edition contains a series of conversation on time between students and faculty at Stevens Institute of Technology on a range of issues related to time. It also contains student artwork.
Palaver: The Stevens Journal is a publication of Stevens Institute of Technology. The journal was... more Palaver: The Stevens Journal is a publication of Stevens Institute of Technology. The journal was founded by Benjamin H. Ogden. It is comprised of dialogues between faculty members and students on a subject of the Editorial Board's choosing.
The Analyst's Ear and the Critic's: Rethinking Psychoanalysis and Literature (co-author Thomas H. Ogden), 2013
Co-authored study by the literary scholar Benjamin H. Ogden and the psychoanalyst Thomas H. Ogden... more Co-authored study by the literary scholar Benjamin H. Ogden and the psychoanalyst Thomas H. Ogden.
This book radically redefines the relationship between psychoanalysis and literary studies in a way that revitalizes the conversation between the two fields. This is achieved, in part, by providing richly textured descriptions of analytic work. These clinical illustrations bring to life the intersubjective dimension of analytic practice, which is integral to the book’s original conception of psychoanalytic literary criticism. In their readings of seminal works of American and European literature, the authors address questions that are fundamental to psychoanalysis, literary studies, and the future of psychoanalytic literary criticism:
Through a series of radical and innovative chapters, Beyond Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Be... more Through a series of radical and innovative chapters, Beyond Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Between Literature and Mind challenges the tradition of applied psychoanalysis that has long dominated psychoanalytic literary criticism. Benjamin H. Ogden, a literary scholar, proposes that a new form of analytic literary criticism take its place, one that begins from a place of respect for the mystery of literature and the complexity of its inner workings. In this book, through readings of authors such as J.M. Coetzee, Flannery O'Connor, and Vladimir Nabokov, the mysteries upon which literary works rely for their enduring power are enumerated and studied. Such mysteries are thereafter interwoven into a series of pioneering studies of how the conceptions of thinking, dreaming, and losing become meaningful within the unique aesthetic conditions of individual novels and poems. Each chapter is a provisional solution to the difficult "bridging problems" that arise when literary figures work in the psychoanalytic space, and when psychoanalysts attempt to make use of literature for analytic purposes. At every turn, Beyond Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Between Literature and Mind acts as a living example of the territory it explores: the space between two disciplines, wherein the writer brings into being a form of psychoanalytic literary criticism of his own making. Forgoing traditional applied psychoanalysis and technical jargon, this highly accessible, interdisciplinary work will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, as well as literary critics and scholars.
Palaver: The Stevens Journal is a publication of Stevens Institute of Technology. The journal was... more Palaver: The Stevens Journal is a publication of Stevens Institute of Technology. The journal was founded by Benjamin H. Ogden. It is comprised of dialogues between faculty members and students on a subject of the Editorial Board's choosing. The second issue is on the subject of dreams, and includes dialogues between Garrett Kinkaid and Professor Benjamin Ogden, Milena Sudarikov and Professor Nemira Kopp, Andrew Phillips and Professor Sarah Minsloff, and Aleks Dimoski and Professor John Horgan.
Palaver: The Stevens Journal is a publication of Stevens Institute of Technology. The journal was... more Palaver: The Stevens Journal is a publication of Stevens Institute of Technology. The journal was founded by Benjamin H. Ogden. It is comprised of dialogues between faculty members and students on a subject of the Editorial Board's choosing. The inaugural issue is on the subject of courage, and includes dialogues between Mariapia Riso and Professor Benjamin Ogden, Garrett Kinkaid and Professor Michael Steinmann, Milena Sudarikov and Professor Ashley Lytle, and Cosmo Gallardo and Professor Jason Vredenburg.
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This book radically redefines the relationship between psychoanalysis and literary studies in a way that revitalizes the conversation between the two fields. This is achieved, in part, by providing richly textured descriptions of analytic work. These clinical illustrations bring to life the intersubjective dimension of analytic practice, which is integral to the book’s original conception of psychoanalytic literary criticism. In their readings of seminal works of American and European literature, the authors address questions that are fundamental to psychoanalysis, literary studies, and the future of psychoanalytic literary criticism: