RACE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: ENCOUNTERS WITH OTHERNESS

The 2026-2027 Colloquium Series

presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of the William Alanson White Institute

The Narrative Cure: An Intersectional Reading of Trauma and Dissociation in The Birdcatcher by Gayl Jones

presented by Nikol Alexander-Floyd, JD, PhD

with Host & Moderator Stephen Friedman, PhD

FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 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

In this presentation, Dr, Alexander-Floyd provides a psychoanalytic intersectional analysis of The Birdcatcher by Gayl Jones (1986/2022), an author who has paid special attention to psychology and trauma. Jones powerfully exposes how race, gender, and class domination persists, despite gains in civil rights in terms of race and gender, and how trauma, including through efforts to assimilate or to transgress dominant norms, can fracture the psyche, through various forms of dissociation.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd, JD, PhD, is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick and a graduate of the William Alanson White Institute. A lawyer and political scientist, Dr. Alexander-Floyd has been actively engaged in a wide range of political and legal issues, providing commentary for a variety of venues such as public radio NPR, TNT World News, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. She is the author of several books, and her articles have appeared in leading journals such as Feminist Formations, The International Journal of Africana Studies, Frontiers, Meridians, The National Political Science Review, Politics & Gender, PS: Political Science & Politics, and Signs. Her latest book, Re-Imagining Black Women: A Critique of Post-Feminist and Post-Racial Melodrama in Culture and Politics (NYU Press 2021), examines liminality, utilizing psychoanalytic theory on, among other things, splitting, identification and idealization, and haunting, and won the 2022 W.E.B. DuBois Distinguished Book Award, given by the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. A recognized leader committed to diversity, Dr. Alexander-Floyd is a co-founder of the Association for the Study of Black Women and Politics; she also co-chaired the Annual Meeting of the National Women’s Studies Association for two years, and led the American Political Science Association’s Committee on the Status of Women and the Profession. She is editor of a special, forthcoming issue in the Spring 2027, of Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society, marking the 30th anniversary of Claudia Tate’s Freud and His ‘Negro’: Psychoanalysis as Enemy and Ally of African Americans.

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.