Western Branch Canadian Psychoanalytic Society
Vancouver Pre-conference Course
Gender as a Soft Assembly: An introduction to the work of Adrienne Harris (Vancouver)
VANCOUVER | October 5, 2018 – April 12, 2019
The Vancouver chapter Western Branch Course Committee is pleased to offer a seven session series of seminars in preparation for the Annual Scientific Meeting to be held on March 23, 2019. The annual conference will be entitled “Gender as a Soft Assembly: Gender Multidimensionality” with Presenter, Adrienne Harris, Ph.D.
Dr. Harris is on the faculty and is a supervisor at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She also serves on the faculty and is a supervisor at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. Dr. Harris co-edited the book Psychoanalytic Dialogues, and Studies In Gender and Sexuality, and in 2009, she, along with Lewis Aron, and Jeremy Safron established the Sandor Ferenczi Center at the New School University. Dr. Harris co-edited the Book Series Relational Perspectives in Psychoanalysis, a series with over 70 published volumes. She is a member of the NGO (non governmental organization) which the IPA developed to work with the United Nations and she has been involved with education and development on the problem of human trafficking. Dr. Harris is an editor of the IPA ejournal Psychoanalysistoday.com which is developing cross cultural communications on the topics of Violence and Migration.
Dr. Harris has been a key figure in the psychoanalytic discourse on gender, sexuality, and identity for the past 20 years. Steeped in Relational and Field Theory perspectives in contemporary psychoanalysis, she draws on works by sociologists and philosophers like Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Francois Lyotard, and psychoanalytic writers like Sandor Ferenczi, Jean Laplanche, Jessica Benjamin, among others, to develop a contemporary dynamic understanding of the multidimensional factors which contribute to the soft assembly of gender identity. Chaos theory, queer theory, and non-linear systems theory form the basis of her discourse on the multiplicity of genders and fluidity of identity, impacted by a multiplicity of environmental, developmental, and constitutional factors. Dr. Harris is a noted Ferenczi scholar who, among others is rehabilitating trauma theory, abandoned by Freud, in the psychoanalytic dialogue.
Dr. Harris has written on topics in gender and development, analytic subjectivity and self-care, primitive states and the analytic community in the shadow of the First World War. Her current focus is on analytic subjectivity, intersectional models of gender and sexuality, and on ghosts.
These seminars will focus on Harris’s work on gender and development and will use readings suggested by Dr. Harris as a useful preparation for the conference itself.
Schedule:
The seminars will be held on Fridays (see dates below) from 4 pm – 7 pm.
There will be a theoretical component in the first half, followed by a break,
and a clinical segment in the second half in which participants will present case material.
Dates:
October 5, November 23, December 14, 2018
January 11, February 15, March 15 and April 12, 2019
Location:
Arbutus Club Boardroom
2001 Nanton Ave, Vancouver, BC V6J 4A1
Planning committee:
Endre Koritar. MD, FRCPC, FIPA and Judith Setton-Markus, M.Ed., R. Psych., FIPA
Class Representative: Joseph Eliezer
Group Facilitators:
Endre Koritar, Judith Setton-Markus, Coleen Gold, Janet Oakes, Jo Hoffman
Cost:
$315 (General Registration)
$175 (Students, Residents and Candidates)
All course readings will be provided upon payment of tuition fee.
Registrants for the course will receive a $25 discount toward their registration fee for the
WBCPS 2019 conference with keynote speaker Adrienne Harris, Ph.D.
Withdrawal Policy: The withdrawal policy of the Course Program allows for a refund, minus a 10% administration cost, up to five business days before the first class. No refund will be granted as of the first meeting.
Course Outline
Seminar 1: October 5, 2018
Facilitator: Judith Setton-Markus
Readings
1. Harris, A. (2003). Chapter 1: “Multiple Selves, Multiple Codes”. In Gender as a Soft Assembly: Routledge: New York. pp. 25-47.
2. Harris, A. (2003) Chapter 2: “Timelines and Temporalities” In Gender as A Soft Assembly: Routledge: New York. pp. 49-72.
(46 pages)
Seminar 2: November 23 2018
Facilitator: Endre Koritar
Reading: Harris, A. (2003). Chapter 8: “Chaos Theory as a map to Contemporary Gender Theorists” In Gender as a Soft Assembly: Routledge: New York. pp.191-214. (23 pages)
Seminar 3: December 14 2018
Facilitator: Coleen Gold
Readings
1. Harris, A. (2000). Gender as a Soft Assembly: Tomboy Stories Stud. Gend. Sex., 1(3): 223-250.
2. Harris, A. (2011). Gender as a Strange Attractor: Discussion of the Transgender Symposium. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 21(2):230-238.
(28 pages)
Seminar 4: January 11 2019
Facilitator: Jo Hoffman
Reading: Harris. A. “Beyond the Binary: Caesuras and Nonlinear Dynamic Stories”. (36 pages)
Seminar 5: February 15 2019
Facilitator: Janet Oakes
Reading: Harris, A. “Hatred, Envy, Misogyny” (23 pages)
Seminar 6: March 15 2019
Facilitator: Endre Koritar
Readings
1. Harris, A. “Melancholic Fathers. Dangerous Fathers”. (13 pages)
2. Harris, A. (2008). “Fathers” and “Daughters”. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 28(1):39-59. (20 pages)
Post-conference debrief Session 7: April 12 2019
Facilitator: Judith Setton-Markus
Reading: Harris, A. (2016) Winnicott and Gender Madness. (33 pages)