The Summer Institute of Psychoanalysis, a joint venture of Northwestern University and the Sorbonne Nouvelle that was inaugurated in 2017, develops topics at the intersection of psychoanalysis and the humanities.

Psychoanalysis came into being through the discovery of trauma.  We may recall that, in his work with Breuer on hysteria, Freud first linked trauma to the question of seduction but later, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, revisited trauma in relation to the death drive.  Throughout his life he reflected on the limits of remembering and on the specific temporality of trauma (Nachträglichkeit or après-coup), which arguably has evolved into one of the most important concepts of psychoanalytic theory.  After Freud, the question of trauma was taken up and elaborated productively by Ferenczi, Lacan, and Laplanche, thus acquiring important new dimensions.

The 2025 session of the Summer Institute of Psychoanalysis will focus on these different psychoanalytic notions of trauma in light of more recent critical approaches, while considering at the same time the necessary ethical and political implications of trauma studies, especially in the literary, historical, feminist, and postcolonial fields.  Trauma in this light has proven to be an old concept that continually renews itself.  The goal of this year’s seminars will be to reflect on how psychoanalysis may contribute to the future of trauma studies.

PARTICIPATING FACULTY FOR 2025:
Susana Onega, Professor of English Literature, University of Zaragoza