Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt), Dynamic Movement, 1960

Freud’s theory of the “slip” (Fehlleistung) is one of the original contributions of psychoanalysis. Yet as Freud was himself the first to indicate, it is also an elucidation of immemorial customs of attending to portentous events. Through a consideration of some premodern and modern interpretations of stumbling, this presentation will explore the ways in which the Freudian theory redefines the sense of apparent accidents.

Suggested readings: Selections from: Freud: The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1904); Lacan: Seminar V, 1957-58, Formations of the Unconscious; Cicero: On Divination; Benjamin, Walter: One-Way Street.

Location: Online via Zoom. 

Fee: $40; for students with ID: $10.

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Daniel Heller-Roazen is Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University. His most recent books are Absentees: On Variously Missing Persons (2021) and No One’s Ways: An Essay on Infinite Naming (2017).

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