Charles Shepherdson
| Charles Shepherdson | |
|---|---|
| Organization details | |
| Type | Academic theorist |
| Orientation | Lacanian psychoanalysis |
| Institutional context | |
| Affiliation | Independent |
| Operations | |
| Headquarters | Albany, New York, USA |
| Geographic scope | Academic |
| Publications | Vital Signs: Nature, Culture, Psychoanalysis |
Charles Shepherdson is an American professor of English at the University at Albany, SUNY, specializing in psychoanalysis, particularly the Lacanian tradition, continental philosophy, literary theory, and nineteenth-century intellectual history.[1][2]
Shepherdson is recognized for his contributions to debates on sexual difference, the body, nature, and culture in psychoanalysis, challenging binary oppositions such as essentialism versus social constructionism.[3] His work emphasizes the specificity of psychoanalytic concepts like desire, the Real, and the relation between the symbolic and the organism.[3]
Biography
Shepherdson earned his Ph.D. in English Literature from Vanderbilt University in 1986, with a dissertation titled "Excess and Insufficiency: History and Subjectivity in the British Romantic Lyric," directed by Donald Ault and Charles Scott.[2] He received his M.A. from the same institution in 1981 and his B.A. from Grinnell College.[2][1]
From 2018 to 2021, he served as Professor and Chair of the English Department at the University at Albany, SUNY. He is currently Director of the interdisciplinary Liberal Studies MA Program there.[1]
Academic career
Shepherdson has held positions including Assistant Professor of English at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and visiting scholar roles at institutions such as Cornell University Medical School and Brown University's Pembroke Center.[2] He has been a member of the Board of the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society since 1996 and a founding executive committee member of the International Society for Psychoanalysis and Philosophy (2008–2011).[2]
His graduate courses include "Tragedy and Theory: Reading Antigone", "Aesthetics and Emotion", "Feminism and Psychoanalysis", and "Perspectives on Gender and Embodiment".[2]
Publications
Shepherdson is the author of several books, including:
- Vital Signs: Nature, Culture, Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2000), which critiques reductive debates in psychoanalytic theory on the body and sexual difference, arguing that psychoanalysis refuses oppositions between nature and culture.[3][2]
- Lacan and the Limits of Language (Fordham University Press).[1]
- Ethics and the Feminine (Zenske Studije, 2002), a collection translated into Serbo-Croatian.[2]
- The Epoch of the Body (Stanford University Press, forthcoming).[1]
He edits the Insinuations: Philosophy, Literature, Psychoanalysis book series at SUNY Press, which has produced approximately 20 volumes.[1][2]
Notable essays include "The Role of Gender and the Imperative of Sex" in Supposing the Subject (Verso, 1994), "Anxiety in Freud and Lacan", and "Vital Signs: The Place of Memory in Psychoanalysis" (Research in Phenomenology, 1993).[2]
His work has been translated into French, Portuguese, Korean, Chinese, and Serbo-Croatian.[1]
Key concepts
Shepherdson's theoretical work focuses on:
- Sexual difference as neither biological sex nor gender, but a psychoanalytic enigma tied to the symbolic and the Real.[3]
- The rejection of the "repressive hypothesis", distinguishing the "role" of gender from the "imperative" of sex.[3]
- The temporality of the subject, arising from contradictions in the law between the symbolic father and the primal father.[3]
- The relation between the symbolic and the organism, formed through intimate transmission in the family.[3]
He has addressed topics such as anxiety in Freud and Lacan, the uncanny, and the role of emotion in aesthetic experience.[2]
Reception
Vital Signs has been reviewed in journals including Hypatia, Journal of European Psychoanalysis, and Postmodern Culture, and discussed in the New York Review of Books.[2] A review praises it for reestablishing psychoanalytic distinctions and affirming psychoanalysis's future.[3]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 "Charles Shepherdson". University at Albany, SUNY. Retrieved 2023.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|access-date=(help) - ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 "Charles Shepherdson CV 2023" (PDF). University at Albany, SUNY. Retrieved 2023.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|access-date=(help) - ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 "Review: Charles Shepherdson, Vital Signs". Journal of Psychoanalysis. Retrieved 2023.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|access-date=(help)