Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?

Dr Fintan Walsh

SESSION 1: Theories of Sexuality 113 Years after Freud’s ‘Three Essays’

Description: Session one considers the continued importance and influence of Freud’s ‘Three Essays’ for contemporary considerations of sexuality, as well as more recent contributions by writers working in clinical contexts and academia. The session begins with four brief, informal responses (10 mins each) to Freud’s ‘Three Essays’, followed by discussion with delegates.

Dr Fintan Walsh is Reader in Theatre and Performance and Co-Director of the Centre for Contemporary Theatre at Birkbeck, University of London. He researches within the fields of modern and contemporary drama, theatre and performance studies, focusing on questions of subjectivity, identity, and cultural politics; affective experience and public intimacy; socially engaged performance, in particular queer art practices. A concern for the survival tactics of bodies, subjects and communities under inordinate pressure or distress unites this research, leading to books that examine sacrificial aesthetics and practices (Male Trouble: Masculinity and the Performance of Crisis [2010]); the relationship among psychoanalysis, therapeutic cultures and performance (Theatre & Therapy [2012]); and the theatrical and social work of minoritarian performance (Queer Performance and Contemporary Ireland: Dissent and Disorientation [2016]). Fintan is currently working on a project on theatre and contagion.