Autotheory or Where Feminism and Psychoanalysis Intersect: The Works of Alison Bechdel and Maggie Nelson

Yael Segalovitz, PhD, Discussant Elise Geltman, LCSW

Friday Feb 21, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

Please note this program will occur on the 3rd Friday

Maggie Nelson and Alison Bechdel explore the complexities of selfhood, gender, and emotional connection through their evocative writing (and images) in their books The Argonauts and Are You My Mother? Nelson’s work, with its hybrid genre of memoir, philosophy, and critical theory, offers a rich field for psychoanalytic inquiry. Bechdel’s graphic memoirs offer a unique intersection of family dynamics, identity, and trauma through a psychoanalytic lens, with a focus on the mother-daughter relationship in Are You My Mother? Both Nelson and Bechdel engage with the question of how identity is shaped by past trauma and the embodied experiences of the self. While writing about their personal lives they also in engage in a dialogue with theorists and specifically they are drawn to the ideas of Winnicott. Literary academic, Yael Segalovitz, explores the impact of their work in her paper Psychoanaliterature, or, how the American Relational Move Made Are You My Mother? and The Argonauts. Segalovitz is interested in the new textual tendency where psychoanalytic theory, fiction writing, self-writing, and literary scholarship converge. She calls this body of works at this conjunction as ‘psychoanaliterature’. Drawing on Object Relations, Freud’s self-analysis, and on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s queer relationality, she looks at these writings from a critical theory perspective incorporating feminist, queer, and poststructuralist critiques. She joins us as we will traverse the terrain where these worlds converge: psychoanalysis, autotheory and literary criticism.

CE Credits offered: 2

Course Objectives

After completing this course participants will be able to:

1. List elements of “psychoanaliterature” where psychoanalytic theory, fiction writing, self-writing, and literary scholarship converge.
2. List ways that the work of Alison Bechdel and Maggie Nelson draw on object relations theory as a way to contextualize their experience through the writings of Winnicott.

db.pincsf.org/events – 415-288-4050 — 530 Bush St, Suite 703, SF CA USA — pincsf@gmail.com

The Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC) is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. PINC maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Visit db.pincsf.org/policies for policies and disclaimers.