All registrants will receive their link to join via ZOOM. Attendees will also receive access to the recording on the Monday after the event, available to watch back for 1 month.
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French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan spoke about the possibility of an unlocatable feminine enjoyment that exists outside of the common discourse. He claimed that feminine subjectivity has access to an unsymbolised pleasure, which he contrasted to masculinity being bound to conditions of rising and falling. Female eroticism, within this theoretical framework, is foreclosed by the male due to her surplus of gratification. Women’s sexual autonomy forces them to occupy the paradoxical position of being both alluring and threatening. As a result, female sexuality is expelled to the forbidden realm of the inexpressible and death.
In this lecture, we will investigate representations of feminine jouissance in three films: Possession (1981) dir. Andrzej Żuławski, Paranormal Activity (2007) dir. Oren Peli, and Kiss of the Damned (2012) dir. Alexandra Cassavetes. The proposition is that women are capable of a transgressive and excessive bodily pleasure that reaches outside of the phallocentric order (male created discourse). This supplementary enjoyment causes women to be pushed out of a conscious collective reality; functionally it produces an (at best) ambivalent and most often fearful response within a culture that happens to confront female sexual power. In this context, reference will also be made to the psychoanalytic structure of hysteria, specifically to interpret the violent physical component of women in these films.
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Speakers:
Mary Wild @psycstar is a prominent figure in the field of film studies, and the creator of the Projections lecture series at Freud Museum London, applying psychoanalysis to film interpretation. She posts exclusive content on patreon.com/marywild
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Tickets: £15
Freud Museum Members and Patrons receive 20% off the standard ticket price on all events, courses, conferences and On Demand programming.
A limited number of £10 bursary tickets are available for those under financial hardship. Priority will be given to UK unemployed and PIP/ESA claimants. Please email [email protected] to apply for a bursary.
The purpose of this event is to raise funds for the Freud Museum London, which receives no regular Government income. We are grateful to you for supporting our independent museum as generously as possible.
