Guest Lecturer: Shanna de la Torre “Dreams of the New in Post War France” May 6

Posted by Tim on May 4, 2020 in Academics, Community Announcements, Event, Workshops

Desidero: For the love of the Thing

Shanna de la Torre

What is at stake in choosing to be on the side of the Thing, that bit of the real at work in the body, seeking expression? In this paper, Shanna de la Torre proceeds from the premise that femininity is a work, a work at, in the words of Willy Apollon, articulating the drive within us with aesthetics. With the intention of drawing out some of the links among unconscious desire and the work of the Thing both in the body and at the level of the social, she will consider a set of examples drawn from art, film, and clinical case studies. Arguing that these examples give aesthetic expression to distinct moments in the kinds of problems a feminine subject may encounter in engaging in the work of femininity, she points to ways in which these examples risk taking the side of the Thing—rather than the side of repression—in engaging with questions germane to any subject of the drive. She further argues that these examples—which are, themselves, aesthetic expressions offered to the public—make a creation for others out of those sites of impasse, thereby potentially mobilizing others’ desire. 

Dr. Shanna de la Torre is an alumna from the Cornell Romance Languages Studies PhD program and current practicing social worker in Minnesota. Her research explores the relationship between feminist, queer and psychoanalytic theories, and her writings have appeared in a variety of reputable journals such as differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies and The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. As part of this research she has published Sex for Structuralists: The Non-Oedipal Logics of Femininity and Psychosis.

If you wish to join us, please email me by Wednesday at 2 PM at fnegrete@buffalo.edu.