RACE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: ENCOUNTERS WITH OTHERNESS

The 2026-2027 Colloquium Series

presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of the William Alanson White Institute

The Unthought Other: Race, Dissociation, and a Black Feminist Psychoanalytics

presented by Michelle Stephens, LP, PhD

with Host & Moderator Stephen Friedman, PhD

FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2027 from 7:30-9:30pm/Eastern

Held in person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, New York City and via live stream online

1.5 CEs are available for attending. In order to receive your credit after attending, follow the instructions that are sent prior to the event.

ABOUT THIS EVENT

At the end of the 1980s, the black feminist legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw wrestled with the problem of a female blackness lived as an invisible intersectionality. Almost five decades later, Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality and critical race theory has become a hot button topic for conservative assertions of the lack of relevance of racialized experience to American identity.

Meanwhile, the past 50 years has also seen the emergence of a coherent, experientially based, archive of writings—essays, scholarly works, memoirs, biographies and autobiographies, histories, fiction and poetry—articulating the distinctive position of black female subjects. This position – historical, psychic, subjective – is situated within and shaped by a centuries long colonial formation stretching from Europeans’ early encounters with the peoples of Africa and the Americas to the present. Drawing from this archive of black female writings, including perspectives by black female psychoanalysts and visual artists, this talk will explore some of the traumatic, dissociative processes that shape how we approach race and sex interpersonally. In so doing, a key goal is to demonstrate black feminist contributions to our understanding of the ‘unthinkability’ of the black female subject as an “unthought other.”

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Michelle Stephens, LP, PhD, is a graduate of the William Alanson White Institute. A practicing psychoanalyst and co-director of The Chocolate Salon, she is also Professor of English and Latino and Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University, and the Founding and Executive Director of Rutgers’ Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice (ISGRJ). Recent published works include Skin Acts: Race, Psychoanalysis and The Black Male Performer (Duke University Press, 2014); and articles on the intersections of race and psychoanalysis in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA), Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, and Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

The ability to live with differences, let alone to enjoy such living and to benefit from it, does not come easily and certainly not under its own impetus. This ability is an art which like all arts, requires study and exercise…

Zygmunt Bauman (2000)

Psychoanalysis at its best lingers in liminal spaces and gleans wisdom from encounters on the margin (bell hooks, 2000), with things unseen and experienced as ‘Other.’ The spirit of this colloquium series on Race and Psychoanalysis is to foster a dialogue about otherness in far flung places and deep within ourselves. The hope is to sustain the conversation and build authentic human connection without a collapse into a realm where defensiveness reigns, thoughts cannot be thought and feelings become rife with experiences of anxiety and shame.

Although the repair of centuries of racial oppression is impossible, the speakers in this colloquium series will address in an interdisciplinary fashion, the myriad ways in which psychoanalysis may help inform pathways towards some semblance of healing in the consulting room and beyond.

All the speakers will present their talks in person. We encourage everyone to attend in person and continue the tradition of meeting at the Institute. At the same time, the series will be offered on a live stream, allowing us to reach a broader audience beyond New York, and connect with those who are unable to join in person.

This series is presented at no charge to its audience. Please consider making a donation to The Psychoanalytic Society when registering.