Shakespeare at the American Psychoanalytic Association

“Brush up your Shakespeare,” read the relevant play and come prepared to join Henry (Harry) Smith, Paul Schwaber, and two outstanding Shakespearean scholars during the meetings of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Three University Forums—which bring together psychoanalysis and academia—are being devoted to Shakespeare. We had a wonderful turnout for our inaugural run with The Merchant of Venice this past January in New York City. Colleagues were enthusiastic and excited. Some of us felt we were back in college or in the graduate school we never attended, so that a former college classmate who came to sit next to me, noted that, listening to Shakespeare, we belonged together. The rest of you belong with us too. And you can invite your friends who are not psychoanalysts to attend the University Forums, which are open to the public without fee or registration (only the University Forums).

Smith and Schwaber did and will do a wonderful job of framing and discussing the talks by our Shakespearean scholars. But more than that, both are capable of their own outstanding scholarship. You all know Harry Smith through his wonderful writings, his chairing the Program Committee of APsaA, and his editorship of The Psychoanalytic Quarterly. If you haven't yet heard him read Shakespeare, come prepared for a great treat. Paul Schwaber is a practicing psychoanalyst and a Professor of Letters at Wesleyan College. He is the author of many works including The Cast of Characters, a study of James Joyce's Ulysses. Remarkable for a psychoanalytically oriented book, The New York Times raved about it. He led a memorable “Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism” at APsaA on Ulysses, with special mention for Molly Bloom. At the January 2010 University Forum, Shakespeareans Maurice Charney (Rutgers, emeritus) and Peter Platt, chair of the English department at Barnard were great. The discussions of revenge and forgiveness, of paradox and contradiction, and of the historical setting of The Merchant of Venice by both the Shakespeareans and the psychoanalysts, including colleagues from the audience, were outstanding.

Shakespeareans and Analysts Discuss Lear

On Friday, June 11, from 2:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. during the APsaA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, the University Forum will focus on King Lear. Our Shakespeareans will be Meredith Skura and Michael Mack. She is Libby Shearn Moody Professor of English at Rice and the author of The Literary Uses of the Psychoanalytic Process, which is first-rate. Skura led a terrific “Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism” at APsaA on a female contemporary of Shakespeare, Elizabeth (Tanfield) Carey (Lady Falkland) and her play, Mariam, The Fair Queen of Jewry. Mack is associate professor of English and director of the University Honors Program at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

In January 2011 our final “University Forum on Shakespeare” (if that can be) will be on Antony and Cleopatra. Shakespeareans Leonard Barkan and Edward Tayler will join us. Barkan is Arthur W Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature and director of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at Princeton. Tayler is Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities, emeritus at Columbia. Our scouting reports on those Shakespeareans have been glowing. A psychoanalyst friend swears that Ted Tayler is the best teacher he has ever had.