A lecture exploring the complex emotional transformations wrought by war, another on “Why Psychoanalysis Has No History” and the screening of a film about Freud disciple Marie Bonaparte are the three spring-term events being presented by the Muriel Gardiner Program in Psychoanalysis and the Humanities at Yale’s Whitney Humanities Center (WHC).
Events are free and open to the public and, unless otherwise indicated, take place at WHC, 53 Wall St.
Nancy Sherman, author of “Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind” (Oxford, 2005), will deliver a lecture on March 6 examining the toll war takes on the human psyche. She will argue that all stages of war—including preparation, combat and the journey to recovery—pose a host of emotional problems and inner turmoil that the clinical evaluation “post-traumatic stress disorder” does not adequately describe. Sherman, a psychoanalyst, is University Professor in the Philosophy Department, Georgetown University, and previously held the title of Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy. The lecture takes place at 7:30 p.m. in the WHC.
Biographer Elisabeth Young-Bruehl will deliver the Muriel Gardiner Lecture, “Why Psychoanalysis Has No History,” on March 18. This talk (part of the sixth annual Psychoanalytic Research Training Program sponsored by the Anna Freud Centre Programs at the Yale Child Study Center) will take place in the auditorium of Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Avenue, 7:30 p.m.
Young-Bruehl, a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City, is the author of two award-winning biographies, “Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World” (1982; second edition, 2004) and “Anna Freud: A Biography” (1988). In addition, she has published a monograph on Karl Jaspers’s philosophy, a novel titled “Vigil,” (three collections of her own essays, and an anthology titled “Freud on Women.” She has also published a study of types of creativity and an anthology of short fiction from around the world. In 2006, Yale University Press published her book “Why Arendt Matters,” which also celebrated Arendt’s centenary.
A screening and discussion of the 2004 film “Princess Marie” on April 10 will be the third and final event in the Muriel Gardiner series. Directed by Benoit Jacquot, with Catherine Deneuve in the lead role, the film tells the story of Princess Marie Bonaparte’s heroic rescue of Freud and his family from Nazi-held Austria. “Princess Marie” will be shown in WHC, Room 208, at 7:30 p.m. Anne Kern, who holds a doctorate in comparative literature and film studies from Yale and currently teaches at Purchase College in New York, will lead the discussion following the film.
The Gardiner Program began at Yale in 1976 as the Mark and Viva Kanzer Seminar. It was further endowed in 1986 by the New-Land Foundation in the name of Muriel Gardiner. A native of Chicago, Gardiner studied English literature at Wellesley and Oxford, then went to medical school in Vienna where she became a psychoanalyst. In the 1930s, she was deeply involved in the Austrian anti-Fascist and anti-Nazi underground, helping many to escape to freedom. Her autobiography, “Code Name Mary,” described that portion of her life, and Gardiner is thought to be the inspiration for the “Julia” of Lillian Hellman’s autobiographical book, “Pentimento.”
