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Psychoanalysis, Postcolonialism, Islam

COM. LIT. /ARABIC M288: MODERN ARAB THOUGHT

SPRING 2015. ROOM: HUM 348. TIME: M 3:15-6 PM

Prof. Nouri Gana

Office: Humanities 356
Office Hrs.: M 6-7 pm & R 5-6pm
E-mail: gana@humnet.ucla.edu
Course description:
Like it or not, the Oedipus complex is far from coming into being among Negroesit would be relatively easy for
me to show that in the French Antilles 97 percent of the families cannot produce one Oedipal neurosis. This
incapacity is one on which we heartily congratulate ourselves. (Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks)

Regardless of whether Fanon is right or wrong about the existence of the Oedipus complex in the Antilles, his
trenchant dismissal of one of the foundational premises of psychoanalysis bespeaks a problematic relationship
between psychoanalysis and non-European cultures and societies. Psychoanalysis emerged in Europe at the
height of Europes colonial adventure in Africa, Asia and elsewhere in the world (note, for instance, that by the
time Freud was developing the Oedipus complex in Totem and Taboo, almost nine-tenths of the worlds
landmass had been either colonized, settled, or controlled by European powers). But, while psychoanalysis and
colonialism share a long and fraught history that ranges from complicity and collaboration during colonization
to conflict and confrontation during decolonization, psychoanalysis and religionIslam, in particularhave
entertained and maintained a history of mutual exclusion and ignorance. The recent upsurge of writings
(especially in French) on Islam from a psychoanalytic perspective, however, does suggest a thaw in the
historically contentious relations between psychoanalysis and Islam.
The question here, though, is not so much whether Islam is psychoanalyzable (notwithstanding its symbolic
differentials to the squarely European exotic science), but whether it has become the object or objective of
ideologically and politically driven analytical methods, not unlike the ones that were used in the colonies to
exonerate racism and colonialism.

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If so, how can a genuine worlding of psychoanalysis take place? And how can Islam, postcolonialism and
critical race theory help expose the provincial premises/universal pretentions of psychoanalysis and
simultaneously expand its insights to non-European cultures by generating culturally specific tools of analysis?
This seminar will engage these and other related questions in an attempt to think theoretically (i.e.,
comparatively) about how best to approach in tandem the triptychpsychoanalysis, postcolonialism, and Islam.
We will read classic and recent texts that range from Freuds Totem and Taboo, Mannonis Prospero and
Caliban, Lacans The Triumph of Religion and Fanons Black Skin, White Masks to Kristevas This incredible
Need to Believe and Fethi Benslemas Psychoanalysis and the Challenge of Islam.
Assignments and evaluation:
Attendance and participation
One oral presentation/short paper
Final paper (due June 12)

20%
30%
50%

Guidelines:
Attendance and participation:
Active and thoughtful participation on a regular basis is required.
Absences will not be tolerated unless for evident and documented health emergencies. With two absences
youre automatically disqualified for the 20% on attendance and participation. Each further absence will result
in the deduction of 10% of your final score.
One oral presentation/short paper
One oral presentation on an assigned/chosen text (15-20 min). The presentation may consist of a preliminary
analysis of the scheduled reading(s) for the week or a close reading of one or two issues of potential critical and
theoretical interest. Organizing the presentation around a problematic or a conceptual issue or a set of issues is
much recommended. Please avoid generic commentaries and try to use your presentation as an opportunity to
build toward a major thesis or argument that will be thoroughly developed later and integrated into the final
paper (see below). Each presenter should prepare an outline of his or her presentation and make a sufficient
number of copies to be distributed in class. Each presentation has to be written and submitted as a short paper
(no less than 7 pages), with a thematic title, one week after the presentation.
Final paper (due June 12, 5pm):
Extensive research paper (no less than 17 pages/5000 words for Grads & 11 pages/3000 words for undergrads)
that expands the argument on which you made your presentation and wrote your short paper. You may if you
wish choose another topic of focus. Feel free to pair comparatively two works together if you think it is
indispensable to an argument youre trying to elaborate.
You are encouraged to meet with me during my office hours to discuss the topic and theoretical scope, as well
as the methodology of your final paper. Please make sure you make an appointment well ahead of the end of the

Please note that part of the required material will be uploaded to the course webpage. Some of the required and optional texts are
available in the UCLA bookstore.

Please note that all writing assignments are to be submitted using Standard English, black ink, 12 pt. Times New Roman font,
double spacing, and your name attached. A title is required for your short paper and another one for your final paper. Please note
also that no extensions will be granted.

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quarter so that you give yourself enough time to work on your paper and submit it by email or to me personally
during office hours on June 12 (3-5pm). Meanwhile, I hope to be able to offer extensive and helpful feedback
on your short paper. Please make full use of the further readings section in the schedule (see below) for your
research paper.
Weekly schedule
March 30: Week 1: Primal Crime, Myth of Origins
Introduction and scope
Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo (1913)
April 6: Week 2: Oedipus Complex (& Judr Complex)
Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921)
Jacques Lacan, Aggressiveness in Psychoanalysis (1948)
Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, The Oedipus Problem in Freud and Lacan
Abdelwaheb Bouhdiba, In the Kingdom of the Mothers (on the Judr Complex)
----further readings----

- Freud, The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex (1924)

- Freud, Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes (1925)
- Lacan, Beyond the Oedipus Complex (from The Other Side of Psychoanalysis)

April 13: Week 3: Dependency Complex (& Voluntary Servitude)

Octave Mannoni, Prospero and Caliban: The Psychology of Colonization
Octave Mannoni, Decolonization of Myself
Moustapha Safouan, Why Are The Arabs Not Free: The Politics of Writing (excerpts)
----further readings----

- Roberto Fernndez Retamar, Caliban and Other Essays (excerpts)

- Emily Apter, Character Assassination (from Continental Drift)
- Christopher Lane, Psychoanalysis and Colonialism Redux

April 20: Week 4: Race Mutters

Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks (esp. chapters 1 & 2)
----further readings----

- Hortense J. Spillers, All the Things You Could be by Now, If Sigmund Freuds Wife Was Your Mother
- Franoise Vergs, To Cure and to Free: The Fanonian Project of Decolonized Psychiatry
- Ranjana Khanna, Colonial Melancholy (from Dark Continents)

April 27: Week 5: Founder, Outsider: Trauma & the Colonial Present
Freud, Moses & Monotheism
Said, Freud and the Non-European
----further readings----

- Freud, The Moses of Michelangelo

- Lacan, The Triumph of Religion (excerpts)
- Abdelkebir Khatibi, Frontiers: Between Psychoanalysis and Islam
- Gayatri C. Spivak, Psychoanalysis in Left Field and Fieldworking: Examples to Fit the Title

May 4: Week 6: Is Islam Psychoanalyzable?

Fethi Benslama, Psychoanalysis and the Challenge of Islam
----further readings----

- Kristeva, This Incredible Need to Believe (excerpts)

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- Gohar Homayounpour, Doing Psychoanalysis in Tehran (excerpts)
- Malik B. Badri, The Dilemma of Muslim Psychologists (excerpts)
- Omnia El Shakry, The Arabic Freud: The Unconscious and the Modern Subject

May 11: Week 7: Fundamentalism & Liberalism: Trials & Denials

Benslama, Dying for Justice & Of a Renunciation of the Father & Dialogue (in Umbra special issue)
Moustapha Safouan, Five Years of Psychoanalysis in Cairo (in Umbra special issue)
Joseph A. Massad, Islam in Liberalism (esp. chaps 4 & 5)
----further readings----all in Umbra special issue

- Stefania Pandolfo, Soul Choking: Maladies of the Soul, Islam & The Ethics of Psychoanalysis
- Alberto Toscano, Fanaticism as Fantasy: Notes on Islam, Psychoanalysis and Political Philosophy
- Joan Copjec, The Censorship of Interiority

May 18: Week 8: Secular Modernity, Complicity & Critique

Talal Asad, Conscripts of Western Civilization
David Scott, Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality (esp. Intro., chaps 6, 8 & coda)
David Scott, Conscripts of Modernity: The Tragedy of Colonial Enlightenment (excerpts)
----further readings-I---all in Is Critique Secular?

- Talal Asad, Free Speech, Blasphemy and Secular Criticism

- Saba Mahmoud, Religious Reason and Secular Affect: An Incommensurable Divide?
- Judith Butler, The Sensibility of Critique: Response to Asad and Mahmoud
----further readings-II---all in The Politics of Truth
- Immanuel Kant, Was ist Aufklrung?
- Michel Foucault, What is Critique?
- Michel Foucault, What is Enlightenment?
- Judith Butler, Critique, Dissent, Disciplinarity

May 25: Week 9 No Class. Memorial Day Holiday

(Recommendation: Read Deleuze & Guattaris Anti-Oedipus, esp. Parts II & III)
June 1: Week 10: Worlding/Provincializing Psychoanalysis
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (excerpts)
Jacques Derrida, Geopsychoanalysis and the rest of the world
Elisabeth Roudinesco, The Geography of Psychoanalysis