This course will focus on Marx and Freud, distinct (among other major thinkers of modernity) for the way their work enables and inaugurates a critical practice – Marxism and psychoanalysis, respectively – that has endured, adapted, mutated, and flourished over the ensuing century (and more). Readings and discussions will track a few of their most significant, critical insights into the organization of material and psychic life, paying particular attention to how they bear on the work of literary and cultural study. Our forays into Freud will take up such key psychoanalytic concepts as the unconscious, resistance, transference, the phallus, and the family romance. Our readings in Marx will explore core notions of materialism, ideology, mode of production, value, and the distinction between abstract and concrete equality. Along the way, we will also consider ways to conjoin Marxist and psychoanalytic approaches and the stakes in imagining this conjuncture.

Critical materials for the course will be drawn from Freud’s Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalyis and The Interpretation of Dreams, as well as his essay on “Fetishism.” We will also read selections from Marx’s Capital and The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, his essay “On the Jewish Question,” and a short selection from Marx and Engel’s The German Ideology. We will think through some of the issues and methods of these critical approaches in relation to a handful of literary and cinematic texts, including (most probably) Nella Larsen’s Passing, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Citizen Kane. Written assignments for the course will includes two five pages essays, as well as frequent, shorter in-class and overnight assignments.