In this conversation with Ann Pellegrini and Avgi Saketopoulou, we discuss their new book Gender ... more In this conversation with Ann Pellegrini and Avgi Saketopoulou, we discuss their new book Gender without Identity (2023), which focuses on gender as always constructed in relation to social, racial, religious, symbolic and psychic trauma. The conversation expands on their theoretical work in terms of clinical psychoanalytic practice.
This essay seeks to reopen the question what counts as an object (of love) and what counts as a v... more This essay seeks to reopen the question what counts as an object (of love) and what counts as a valid and valuable objective (in the humanities classroom, but not only there). Performatively drawing on her own history of wild object relating-with her iPhone, with Freud, with books-the author makes an argument for forms of love and eroticism that do not speak the language of sexuality per se or obey tidy developmental sequencing. She connects this wild object love without "proper" object or aim to the cultivation of ways of thinking and expressing values that can challenge the monetization of everyday life and the capitalization of every facet of human relations.
The scene of war-both how it is practised and how we on the 'home front' see it-has changed drama... more The scene of war-both how it is practised and how we on the 'home front' see it-has changed dramatically since the early months of 1915, when Freud wrote the two essays that would become 'Thoughts for the Times on War and Death'. Embedded reporters take us to the heart of battle; bombings take on the aspect of a video game as we follow a missile to its point of contact, cans of soda in one hand, the remote in
Every October, hundreds of evangelical churches across the United States mount Hell Houses, Chris... more Every October, hundreds of evangelical churches across the United States mount Hell Houses, Christian riffs on the haunted houses that dot the landscape of U.S. secular culture each Halloween season. Where haunted houses seek to scare you for fun, Hell Houses aim to scare you to Jesus. In a typical Hell House, actors playing demon tour guides take the audience
This essay seeks to reopen the question what counts as an object (of love) and what counts as a v... more This essay seeks to reopen the question what counts as an object (of love) and what counts as a valid and valuable objective (in the humanities classroom, but not only there). Performatively drawing on her own history of wild object relating-with her iPhone, with Freud, with books-the author makes an argument for forms of love and eroticism that do not speak the language of sexuality per se or obey tidy developmental sequencing. She connects this wild object love without "proper" object or aim to the cultivation of ways of thinking and expressing values that can challenge the monetization of everyday life and the capitalization of every facet of human relations.
Anthology: Critical Theory and Performance. 2nd edition , 2007
“Staging Sexual Injury: How I Learned to Drive,” in Critical Theory and Performance, second editi... more “Staging Sexual Injury: How I Learned to Drive,” in Critical Theory and Performance, second edition, ed. Janelle G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2007): 413-31.
Anthology: The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Drama, 2004
“Repercussions and Remainders in the Plays of Paula Vogel: An Essay in Five Moments,” in The Camb... more “Repercussions and Remainders in the Plays of Paula Vogel: An Essay in Five Moments,” in The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Drama, ed. David Krasner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 473-85.
A queer appreciation of Judy Garland, published in "Fabulous! The Diva Issue," a special issue of... more A queer appreciation of Judy Garland, published in "Fabulous! The Diva Issue," a special issue of Camera Obscura, co-ed. Alexander Doty and Patricia White.
Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory , 2009
In the past decade, ‘‘affect’’ has emerged as a keyword for queer and
feminist studies – and beyo... more In the past decade, ‘‘affect’’ has emerged as a keyword for queer and feminist studies – and beyond. The turn to affect is also a re-turn, with contemporary studies of affect drawing across rich earlier studies of emotion, feelings and sentiment. This article is less interested in offering a long history of affect studies than it is in asking: Why affect? Why now? As a provisional response this article situates the so-called ‘‘affective turn’’ (to use sociologist Patricia Clough’s term) in relation to the anxiety that secularists, including and especially secular intellectuals in the US academy, have had at the resurgence of religion post-1979. This anxiety, I suggest, formed in response not just to any religion, but to religion understood as ‘‘fundamentalist’’: 1979 is the date of the Iranian revolution, and also marks the emergence or re-emergence of a certain kind of US Christian fundamentalism. Jerry Falwell names his ‘‘Moral Majority’’ as such in 1979. These twinned emergences have shaken the epistemological foundations of large segments of the US academy for whom secularism has been and remains a kind of guiding sentiment. This article goes on to consider the political and epistemological stakes of the secular academy’s disidentification not just with religion, but feelings coded as ‘‘religious.’’ Rather than reject the allegedly contaminating affects of religious feelings, this article argues, scholars of gender and sexuality studies might profit from considering the places where religious and secular feelings ‘‘touch.’’ The case study for this analysis is Hell Houses, Evangelical theatrical performances that seek to scare young people to Jesus.
In the media room at the Freud Museum in Vienna, home movies of
the Freud family run on an endles... more In the media room at the Freud Museum in Vienna, home movies of the Freud family run on an endless loop. Entitled Freud: 1930–1939, the movies are narrated by Anna Freud, who oversaw their compilation and editing during the last two years of her life. Within these ostensibly “private” scenes of the Freud family, the family dogs assume a surprisingly central role. This essay argues that the focus on the dogs becomes a way to narrate and narrate around traumatic loss. For the Freuds these traumatic losses involved their forced exile to London, in 1938, as well as the later deaths of four of Freud’s sisters in concentration camps. In combination, the flickering images from 1930–1939 and Anna Freud’s voiceover—recorded some fifty years later—generate an elliptical and asynchronous accounting of loss. In addition to offering an intimate glimpse of the Freud family, the home movies thus raise broader questions about the temporality of witness and how we can see and hear the pain of the other. As one way into these questions, the essay reads with and against Sigmund Freud’s account of repetition compulsion and the management of loss in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.
In the immediate aftermath of September 11th, I invited a number of theatre and performance schol... more In the immediate aftermath of September 11th, I invited a number of theatre and performance scholars to respond to the concept of tragedy in the context of these world-changing events. The following forum showcases the generosity of a wide range of scholars who signed on to ...
In this conversation with Ann Pellegrini and Avgi Saketopoulou, we discuss their new book Gender ... more In this conversation with Ann Pellegrini and Avgi Saketopoulou, we discuss their new book Gender without Identity (2023), which focuses on gender as always constructed in relation to social, racial, religious, symbolic and psychic trauma. The conversation expands on their theoretical work in terms of clinical psychoanalytic practice.
This essay seeks to reopen the question what counts as an object (of love) and what counts as a v... more This essay seeks to reopen the question what counts as an object (of love) and what counts as a valid and valuable objective (in the humanities classroom, but not only there). Performatively drawing on her own history of wild object relating-with her iPhone, with Freud, with books-the author makes an argument for forms of love and eroticism that do not speak the language of sexuality per se or obey tidy developmental sequencing. She connects this wild object love without "proper" object or aim to the cultivation of ways of thinking and expressing values that can challenge the monetization of everyday life and the capitalization of every facet of human relations.
The scene of war-both how it is practised and how we on the 'home front' see it-has changed drama... more The scene of war-both how it is practised and how we on the 'home front' see it-has changed dramatically since the early months of 1915, when Freud wrote the two essays that would become 'Thoughts for the Times on War and Death'. Embedded reporters take us to the heart of battle; bombings take on the aspect of a video game as we follow a missile to its point of contact, cans of soda in one hand, the remote in
Every October, hundreds of evangelical churches across the United States mount Hell Houses, Chris... more Every October, hundreds of evangelical churches across the United States mount Hell Houses, Christian riffs on the haunted houses that dot the landscape of U.S. secular culture each Halloween season. Where haunted houses seek to scare you for fun, Hell Houses aim to scare you to Jesus. In a typical Hell House, actors playing demon tour guides take the audience
This essay seeks to reopen the question what counts as an object (of love) and what counts as a v... more This essay seeks to reopen the question what counts as an object (of love) and what counts as a valid and valuable objective (in the humanities classroom, but not only there). Performatively drawing on her own history of wild object relating-with her iPhone, with Freud, with books-the author makes an argument for forms of love and eroticism that do not speak the language of sexuality per se or obey tidy developmental sequencing. She connects this wild object love without "proper" object or aim to the cultivation of ways of thinking and expressing values that can challenge the monetization of everyday life and the capitalization of every facet of human relations.
Anthology: Critical Theory and Performance. 2nd edition , 2007
“Staging Sexual Injury: How I Learned to Drive,” in Critical Theory and Performance, second editi... more “Staging Sexual Injury: How I Learned to Drive,” in Critical Theory and Performance, second edition, ed. Janelle G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2007): 413-31.
Anthology: The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Drama, 2004
“Repercussions and Remainders in the Plays of Paula Vogel: An Essay in Five Moments,” in The Camb... more “Repercussions and Remainders in the Plays of Paula Vogel: An Essay in Five Moments,” in The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Drama, ed. David Krasner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 473-85.
A queer appreciation of Judy Garland, published in "Fabulous! The Diva Issue," a special issue of... more A queer appreciation of Judy Garland, published in "Fabulous! The Diva Issue," a special issue of Camera Obscura, co-ed. Alexander Doty and Patricia White.
Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory , 2009
In the past decade, ‘‘affect’’ has emerged as a keyword for queer and
feminist studies – and beyo... more In the past decade, ‘‘affect’’ has emerged as a keyword for queer and feminist studies – and beyond. The turn to affect is also a re-turn, with contemporary studies of affect drawing across rich earlier studies of emotion, feelings and sentiment. This article is less interested in offering a long history of affect studies than it is in asking: Why affect? Why now? As a provisional response this article situates the so-called ‘‘affective turn’’ (to use sociologist Patricia Clough’s term) in relation to the anxiety that secularists, including and especially secular intellectuals in the US academy, have had at the resurgence of religion post-1979. This anxiety, I suggest, formed in response not just to any religion, but to religion understood as ‘‘fundamentalist’’: 1979 is the date of the Iranian revolution, and also marks the emergence or re-emergence of a certain kind of US Christian fundamentalism. Jerry Falwell names his ‘‘Moral Majority’’ as such in 1979. These twinned emergences have shaken the epistemological foundations of large segments of the US academy for whom secularism has been and remains a kind of guiding sentiment. This article goes on to consider the political and epistemological stakes of the secular academy’s disidentification not just with religion, but feelings coded as ‘‘religious.’’ Rather than reject the allegedly contaminating affects of religious feelings, this article argues, scholars of gender and sexuality studies might profit from considering the places where religious and secular feelings ‘‘touch.’’ The case study for this analysis is Hell Houses, Evangelical theatrical performances that seek to scare young people to Jesus.
In the media room at the Freud Museum in Vienna, home movies of
the Freud family run on an endles... more In the media room at the Freud Museum in Vienna, home movies of the Freud family run on an endless loop. Entitled Freud: 1930–1939, the movies are narrated by Anna Freud, who oversaw their compilation and editing during the last two years of her life. Within these ostensibly “private” scenes of the Freud family, the family dogs assume a surprisingly central role. This essay argues that the focus on the dogs becomes a way to narrate and narrate around traumatic loss. For the Freuds these traumatic losses involved their forced exile to London, in 1938, as well as the later deaths of four of Freud’s sisters in concentration camps. In combination, the flickering images from 1930–1939 and Anna Freud’s voiceover—recorded some fifty years later—generate an elliptical and asynchronous accounting of loss. In addition to offering an intimate glimpse of the Freud family, the home movies thus raise broader questions about the temporality of witness and how we can see and hear the pain of the other. As one way into these questions, the essay reads with and against Sigmund Freud’s account of repetition compulsion and the management of loss in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.
In the immediate aftermath of September 11th, I invited a number of theatre and performance schol... more In the immediate aftermath of September 11th, I invited a number of theatre and performance scholars to respond to the concept of tragedy in the context of these world-changing events. The following forum showcases the generosity of a wide range of scholars who signed on to ...
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Papers by Ann Pellegrini
feminist studies – and beyond. The turn to affect is also a re-turn, with
contemporary studies of affect drawing across rich earlier studies of
emotion, feelings and sentiment. This article is less interested in offering
a long history of affect studies than it is in asking: Why affect? Why now?
As a provisional response this article situates the so-called ‘‘affective turn’’ (to use sociologist Patricia Clough’s term) in relation to the anxiety that secularists, including and especially secular intellectuals in the US academy, have had at the resurgence of religion post-1979. This anxiety, I suggest, formed in response not just to any religion, but to religion understood as ‘‘fundamentalist’’: 1979 is the date of the Iranian revolution, and also marks the emergence or re-emergence of a certain kind of US Christian fundamentalism. Jerry Falwell names his ‘‘Moral Majority’’ as such in 1979. These twinned emergences have shaken the epistemological foundations of large segments of the US academy for whom secularism has been and remains a kind of guiding sentiment. This article goes on to consider the political and epistemological stakes of the secular academy’s disidentification not just with religion, but feelings coded as ‘‘religious.’’ Rather than reject the allegedly contaminating affects of religious feelings, this article argues, scholars of gender and sexuality studies might profit from considering the places where religious and secular feelings ‘‘touch.’’ The case study for this analysis is Hell Houses, Evangelical theatrical performances that seek to scare young people to Jesus.
the Freud family run on an endless loop. Entitled Freud: 1930–1939,
the movies are narrated by Anna Freud, who oversaw their compilation
and editing during the last two years of her life. Within these ostensibly
“private” scenes of the Freud family, the family dogs assume a surprisingly central role. This essay argues that the focus on the dogs becomes a way to narrate and narrate around traumatic loss. For the Freuds these traumatic losses involved their forced exile to London, in 1938, as well as the later deaths of four of Freud’s sisters in concentration camps. In combination, the flickering images from 1930–1939 and Anna Freud’s voiceover—recorded some fifty years later—generate an elliptical and asynchronous accounting of loss. In addition to offering an intimate
glimpse of the Freud family, the home movies thus raise broader questions about the temporality of witness and how we can see and hear the pain of the other. As one way into these questions, the essay reads with and against Sigmund Freud’s account of repetition compulsion and the management of loss in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.
[Pub. in American Imago 6.2 (2009): 231-51.]
feminist studies – and beyond. The turn to affect is also a re-turn, with
contemporary studies of affect drawing across rich earlier studies of
emotion, feelings and sentiment. This article is less interested in offering
a long history of affect studies than it is in asking: Why affect? Why now?
As a provisional response this article situates the so-called ‘‘affective turn’’ (to use sociologist Patricia Clough’s term) in relation to the anxiety that secularists, including and especially secular intellectuals in the US academy, have had at the resurgence of religion post-1979. This anxiety, I suggest, formed in response not just to any religion, but to religion understood as ‘‘fundamentalist’’: 1979 is the date of the Iranian revolution, and also marks the emergence or re-emergence of a certain kind of US Christian fundamentalism. Jerry Falwell names his ‘‘Moral Majority’’ as such in 1979. These twinned emergences have shaken the epistemological foundations of large segments of the US academy for whom secularism has been and remains a kind of guiding sentiment. This article goes on to consider the political and epistemological stakes of the secular academy’s disidentification not just with religion, but feelings coded as ‘‘religious.’’ Rather than reject the allegedly contaminating affects of religious feelings, this article argues, scholars of gender and sexuality studies might profit from considering the places where religious and secular feelings ‘‘touch.’’ The case study for this analysis is Hell Houses, Evangelical theatrical performances that seek to scare young people to Jesus.
the Freud family run on an endless loop. Entitled Freud: 1930–1939,
the movies are narrated by Anna Freud, who oversaw their compilation
and editing during the last two years of her life. Within these ostensibly
“private” scenes of the Freud family, the family dogs assume a surprisingly central role. This essay argues that the focus on the dogs becomes a way to narrate and narrate around traumatic loss. For the Freuds these traumatic losses involved their forced exile to London, in 1938, as well as the later deaths of four of Freud’s sisters in concentration camps. In combination, the flickering images from 1930–1939 and Anna Freud’s voiceover—recorded some fifty years later—generate an elliptical and asynchronous accounting of loss. In addition to offering an intimate
glimpse of the Freud family, the home movies thus raise broader questions about the temporality of witness and how we can see and hear the pain of the other. As one way into these questions, the essay reads with and against Sigmund Freud’s account of repetition compulsion and the management of loss in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.
[Pub. in American Imago 6.2 (2009): 231-51.]