Pathological Narratives: How much fantasy is too much fantasy? Seminar

This talk examines the case history of Tommy the "space child," a psychiatric patient under analysis in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At the age of eight, "Tommy" was diagnosed with "extremely destructive fantasies" and began a process of analysis that continued through his teenage years. Using Tommy's therapy as a template, this talk considers the politics of pathologizing fantasy life, especially in relation to the dialog between personal imagination and public media production.

Jeffrey Sconce is Professor in the Screen Cultures program and a Guggenheim Fellow for 2020-2021. His first book, Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television (2000), examines the historical relation between electronic media and the occult. His 2019 book, The Technical Delusion: Electronics, Power, Insanity (2019), considers the historical role of electronic media in the history of psychotic ideation. He is also the editor of Sleaze Artists: Cinema at the Margins of Taste, Style, and Politics (2007), an anthology of essays on various forms of "low" cinema. He has also written catalog essays for exhibitions by Joshua Bonnetta, Mike Kelley, and Tony Oursler.

Please register using Eventbrite and you will then be sent a Outlook meeting request which will include the link to the seminar. Please note the seminar will take place online using Microsoft Teams. The deadline for registering for this event is 13:00 on the day of the seminar (01/12/2020).