The Loss of Pleasure, or Why We Are Still Talking about Oedipus

Carol Gilligan is the author of In a Different Voice, described by Harvard University Press as “the little book that started a revolution.” Her subsequent books include The Birth of Pleasure (2002), Kyra: A Novel (2008), The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future, with David A. J. Richards (2009), and most recently, Joining the Resistance. As a member of the Harvard faculty, she held the university's first chair in gender studies, at the University of Cambridge, she was Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions, and she is currently University Professor of Applied Psychology and the Humanities at New York University. She was named by Time magazine as one of 25 most influential Americans for having “changed the voice of psychology.”
Address correspondence to Carol Gilligan, Ph.D., New York University, Vanderbilt Hall, Room 511, Washington Sq. South, New York, NY 10012 E-mail:

Naomi Snider is a candidate in the William Alanson White Institute's certificate program in psychoanalysis and a research fellow at New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Her current research examines the persistence of patriarchy on psychodynamic grounds. Naomi has an LL.M. from NYU and an LL.B. from the London School of Economics. Prior to joining NYU and embarking on analytic training, Naomi was a lawyer with experience in the field of human rights and international law.