What do we mean by working through the past?

A Psychoanalysis and Politics special event

Litteraturhuset, Oslo, December 13th 2017, 19.00-21.00

Mourning can be conceived as a social effort that binds communities together. Conversely, if we think of how Freud reminds us of our tendency to recoil from any activity that causes pain, how there is “a revolt in our minds against mourning”, we can also conceive of a refusal to mourn as a tie between communities. This year marks the centenary of Freud’s groundbreaking work Mourning and Melancholia (1917). Shared Traumas, Silent Loss, Public and Private mourning (2017) ranges across disciplines, geographies and histories, asking what we might mean by working through the past.

Lene Auestad (Psychoanalysis and Politics) will address the theme of mourning and refusals of mourning in psychoanalysis and critical theory, with a particular emphasis on reflections after the Holocaust.

Steffen Krueger (Media Studies, UiO) will speak in relation to his chapter Unable to mourn again? Media(ted) reactions to German neo-Nazi terrorism.

Yacoubi Cisse (Africans in Norway) will speak on Edward Montgomery, a jazz musician in Oslo who was interned in a German prison camp in 1942.

A limited number of tickets are available. Please note that tickets can only be bought in advance via Picatic, up until and including December 12th 2017 – or earlier if the event is sold out. Please note that tickets are non-refundable.Auguste_Rodin_Kauernde_3