Writing A Life: visualizing Annie Ernaux

Mary Margaret McClure, DMH and Alice Jones, MD

Friday Nov 10, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM

Capturing quotidian moments of desire, pain, suffering and longing, Annie Ernaux engages the reader in very personal exposition of her fiction and memoirs. She translates visual images into words, translation of memory into language, and self into image. Subjects such as the pain and poverty of her youth, the impact of war on her parents, the trauma of having an illegal abortion and the loss of her mother’s mind due to dementia are all investigated in her feminist writings. Ernaux, was awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.” Sometimes she writes from a distance, other times from incredible closeness. Notably, in The Years she writes always of “we” with no “I”, and the collective becomes a way of illuminating the personal. Looking at her work from a psychoanalytic perspective the presenters will look at the tendrils of her work, and all that she communicates with depth and passion.

CE Credits offered: 2

Course Objectives

After completing this course participants will be able to:

1. Participants will be able to describe Annie Ernaux’s written acts of remembering and representing through her writing about photographic images.
2. Participants will be able to discuss the use of journals and notes as a source for the writing of Annie Ernaux.

pincsf.org/events – 415-288-4050 — 530 Bush St, Suite 700, 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 pincsf.org/policies for policies and disclaimers.