Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0016293, Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:23:47 EDT

Subject
Re: Inner Circle Seminar, London, 11 May, on "Sign and Symbols"
Date
Body
NABOKV-L is kindly encouraging this fascinating discussion, paragraph by
paragraph, of "Signs and Symbols" in the fortnight before the Inner Circle
Seminar on 11 May in London devoted to the story, and conducted by Jacqueline
Hamrit, Phyllis Roth, and myself.

How I would like all you contributors to the NABOKV-L discussion to be there
at the seminar!

Here is an invitation to you to come. As you will see, it is expensive, but
very few people have booked. If anyone would like to come but cannot afford
the fee, let me know, and we will arrange something. But these seminars are
expensive to organise and put on, so it should be a case of genuine need.



I should like to remind you that there are only a few days left to book for
Inner Circle Seminar No. 127 on VLADIMIR NABOKOV: 'SIGNS AND SYMBOLS' -- 60
YEARS ON next Sunday, 11 May 2008, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Room C, Regent's
College Conference Centre, Inner Circle, London NW1 4NS.

Why is a seminar in a series on the interdisciplinary foundations of
psychotherapy focussing on a short story, six pages long? It was one of Nabokov's
own favourites, and his biographer Brian Boyd called it one of the greatest
short stories ever written. But what has it to do with psychotherapy? Why are
distinguished literary scholars Jacqueline Hamrit (University of Lille) and
Professor Phyllis Roth (Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY) travelling to
London to discuss it with me, an existential psychotherapist, and with other
participants of various professions, generally oriented towards psychotherapy?

We saw in an Inner Circle Seminar of 2005 just how relevant Nabokov's novel
"Lolita" is for psychotherapy when we compared it with Freud's "Dora" case.
Similarly, Nabokov's "Signs and Symbols" raises profound questions about how
"madness" and "mental illness" are imagined in literature and literary
criticism, but also in psychiatry and psychotherapy, and in ordinary language. We
shall discuss "madmen" and "madwomen" in literature, by Nabokov and other
authors. We shall ask, among other things, how far the authors (and the narrators
they create) see these "mad" characters as moral agents and how far they
collude with and contribute to "the myth of mental illness".

Vladimir Nabokov said that his story had an "inside", "a second (main) story
woven into, or placed behind, the superficial semitransparent one". All
participants in the seminar will be given a copy of the story, and we shall read
the whole story aloud (it is not long). Then, Jacqueline Hamrit, Phyllis Roth
and I will discuss what this "inside" story may be, and what light it may
throw on the questions raised above and on the deeper implications of these
few pages first published in The New Yorker sixty years ago.

The Nabokov discussion website NABOKV-L (to which Nabokov's son Dmitri often
contributes) is kindly running a paragraph-by-paragraph discussion on the
story "Signs and Symbols" as a prelude to the Inner Circle Seminar on 11 May,
with comments from time to time from me. You may find it enlightening to look
this up, or contribute to it, before the seminar.

On 18 May, we have a seminar on Max Scheler (22 August 1874 - 19 May 1928),
who died 80 years ago this month. Martin Heidegger, who had published Being
and Time the year before, told his students that Scheler had been "the
strongest force in contemporary philosophy". He called him "irreplaceable". Heidegger
’s own vision of "being-with-others-in-the world" as primordial, and of mere
"empathy" as artificial and alienated, is fundamentally indebted to Scheler’
s thinking in his book The Nature of Sympathy (1913), which we shall explore
today. Your contribution to the discussion is welcome.

On 22 June, the sociologist and Freud historian Richard Skues, well liked
in our seminars as a brilliant teacher, returns to reopen an apparently closed
case: that of Breuer's "Anna O.", as elaborated by Freud and many others,
both friendly and hostile to psychoanalysis, for more than a century. The
scholarship of Skues's book, Sigmund Freud and the History of Anna O.: Reopening a
Closed Case (2006) is of a wholly different order from that of all the
other secondary literature on the case. If you want to know what real (as opposed
to fantasy) history of psychotherapy looks like, this seminar is for you.
On 20 July, we start a new subseries of eleven (or more) Inner Circle
Seminars, "AVANT-GARDE: SZASZ IN THE 21ST CENTURY", ending on 11 or 18 April 2010.
The first ten seminars will each be devoted to one of Thomas Szasz's books
already published or in preparation in the 21st century. (If his creativity
calls for an extra seminar or two, this will be arranged...) The series will
culminate in a seminar celebrating both Thomas Szasz's 90th birthday (15 April
2010) and the 50th anniversary of his paper, "The Myth of Mental Illness"
(1960), which gave the argument of his epochmaking book with that title
published a year later. The series will show Szasz at the cutting edge of 21st
century thinking on psychiatry and psychotherapy, way ahead of what passes for
"thinking" on these subjects in our institutions.
In the first seminar, on 21 July, we study Szasz's first 21st-century book
Pharmacracy (2001), which he thinks "better than The Myth of Mental Illness",
and we ask, with the help of its lucid argument, how the ideas of "mental
health" and "mental illness" stand up in the light of the modern scientific
concept of disease, as defined 150 years ago by Rudolf Virchow in his historic
book Cellular Pathology (1858).
On 14 September, the distinguished Daseinsanalyst, Alice Holzhey of Zurich,
will conduct a seminar in the series "DASEINSANALYSIS": her title is The
Twofold Meaning of Feelings: Ontic and Ontological Aspects of Anxiety, Guilt
and Shame.


There are still places for Jeffrey Schaler's Inner Circle Seminar No. 132 on
Sunday 12 October 2008, with the same title as his book, Addiction is a
Choice. There is still a real danger that this critically important seminar will
have to be cancelled, not because people did not want to come to hear this
brilliant and revolutionary teacher and lecturer, but because they thought they
could put off booking until later. But I am extending the deadline to 12
May. (This seminar is of obvious relevance to the series on Thomas Szasz in the
21st century.)

On 26 October, Peter Swales (now living in Turkey), the world expert on
Wilhelm Fliess, will also return to our seminars to give a 12-hour seminar
deconstructing the psychoanalytic construction of Fliess as a mere receptacle for
Freud's "transference", and sharing with us many of his findings from his
three decades of research into who Wilhelm Fliess really was.

On 9 November, in the second seminar in the series "AVANT-GARDE: SZASZ IN
THE 21ST CENTURY", we shall discuss Thomas Szasz's second book of the new
millennium: Liberation by Oppression: A Comparative Study of Slavery and
Psychiatry (2002).

On 7 December, in the series "DASEINSANALYSIS", an international panel of
Daseinsanalysts, Hansjörg Reck with Tamás Fazekas, Hans-Dieter Foerster,
Marianne Jaccard, Uta Jaenicke, Anthony Stadlen, will conduct a seminar on a
subject to be announced.


Please note that Marie Balmary will unfortunately not be able to conduct the
seminar previously announced for 9 November 2008.
Time: Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (except Swales seminar, 10 a.m. to 10
p.m.)
Place: Room C (except Herringham Hall for Jeffrey Schaler seminar), Regent’
s College, Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, London NW1.
Cost: Students £88, others £110. No refunds unless seminar cancelled.



Apply to:


Anthony Stadlen, 'Oakleigh', 2A Alexandra Avenue, London N22 7XE
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 8888 6857
Email: _stadlen@aol.com_ (mailto:stadlen@aol.com)

I hope very much that you will be able to come. (Please see the programme of
remaining Inner Circle Seminars for 2008 below.)

Yours sincerely,

Anthony Stadlen

INNER CIRCLE SEMINARS for 2008

Seminars on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
(But: Swales seminar 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.)
Conducted by Anthony Stadlen unless otherwise stated.

Venue: Regent’/s College, Inner Circle, Regent’s Park, London NW1.

Cost: students £88, others £110 for seminars IN ADVANCE (PLEASE CHECK FINAL
DATE FOR BOOKING AUTUMN SEMINARS); reductions for a calendar or academic year
’s seminars; no refunds unless seminar cancelled.

Apply to: Anthony Stadlen, "Oakleigh", 2A Alexandra Avenue, London N22 7XE

Telephone: +44 (0) 20 8888 6857 Email: _stadlen@aol.com_
(mailto:stadlen@aol.com)

11 May 2008: Room C
JACQUELINE HAMRIT, PHYLLIS ROTH and ANTHONY STADLEN
CONDUCT
Inner Circle Seminar No. 127
VLADIMIR NABOKOV
SIGNS AND SYMBOLS: 60 YEARS ON
18 May 2008: Room C
Inner Circle Seminar No. 128
MAX SCHELER (22 August 1874 – 19 May 1928)
THE NATURE OF SYMPATHY
22 June 2008: Room C
RICHARD SKUES CONDUCTS
Inner Circle Seminar No. 129
SIGMUND FREUD AND THE HISTORY OF ANNA O.:
REOPENING A CLOSED CASE
20 July 2008: Room C
Inner Circle Seminar No. 130
(AVANT-GARDE: SZASZ IN THE 21ST CENTURY)
1. THOMAS SZASZ: PHARMACRACY (2001)
(In conjunction with VIRCHOW: CELLULAR PATHOLOGY (1858) -- 150 YEARS ON)
IS 'MENTAL ILLNESS' AN ILLNESS?
14 September 2008: Room C
ALICE HOLZHEY-KUNZ CONDUCTS
Inner Circle Seminar No. 131
(SERIES ON DASEINSANALYSIS)
THE TWOFOLD MEANING OF FEELINGS: ONTIC AND ONTOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ANXIETY,
GUILT AND SHAME.
Final date for subscription: 14 June 2008.
12 October 2008: Herringham Hall
JEFFREY SCHALER CONDUCTS
Inner Circle Seminar No. 132
ADDICTION IS A CHOICE
Final date for subscription: 12 April 2008.
26 October 2008: Room C
PETER J. SWALES CONDUCTS
Inner Circle Seminar No. 133
(12-hour seminar: 10 a.m. – 10 p.m.)
WHO WAS WILHELM FLIESS?
(24 October 1858 – 13 October 1928)
150TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION:
DEMYTHOLOGISING THE PSYCHOANALYTIC MYTH OF FLIESS AS FREUD'S "OTHER"
Final date for subscription: 26 May 2008.
9 November 2008: Room C
(AVANT-GARDE: SZASZ IN THE 21ST CENTURY)
Inner Circle Seminar No. 134
2. THOMAS SZASZ: LIBERATION BY OPPRESSION (2002)
7 December 2008 (Room to be announced)
HANS-JÖRG RECK
(with the help of TAMAS FAZEKAS, HANS-DIETER FOERSTER, MARIANNE JACCARD, UTA
JAENICKE and ANTHONY STADLEN
CONDUCTS

Inner Circle Seminar No. 135
(SERIES ON DASEINSANALYSIS)
Provisional title: DASEINSANALYTIC OPENINGS
Final date for subscription: 7 July 2008.
Anthony Stadlen founded the Inner Circle Seminars in 1996, as an
interdisciplinary search for truth in psychotherapy and its foundations. The seminars
are held once a month, on Sundays, and last all day. Most are conducted by
Anthony Stadlen, but many have been conducted by distinguished authorities in a
number of disciplines, from all over the world, including Alessandra Comini,
Antony Flew, "Emma Gold", Tom Greeves, David Harsent, John Heaton, Susannah
Heschel, Sheila Kitzinger, Claudia Koonz, Franz Maciejewski, Malcolm Macmillan,
Rodney Mariner, Sarah Menin, Nigel Reeves, Gitta Sereny, Sonu Shamdasani,
Martti and Ann-Helen Siirala, David Singmaster, Richard Skues, Naomi Stadlen,
Peter Swales, Thomas Szasz, Terry Tanner, Michael Tregenza, Antti Vihinen.
The seminars themselves have an international reputation. They study
thinkers whose work is of incalculable importance for the foundations of
psychotherapy and related disciplines: Binswanger, Bleuler, Boss, Buber, Coleridge,
Cooper, Esterson, Flew, Flournoy, Freud, Heaton, Heidegger, Heschel, Husserl,
Jung, Kierkegaard, Laing, Levinas, Lomas, Merleau-Ponty, Myers, Nabokov, Patoč
ka, Reich, Rogers, Schaler, Scheler, Schiller, Siirala, Straus, Szasz, von
Hildebrand. The seminars are Continuing Professional Development for advanced
professionals, but they are also a safe place for students of psychotherapy and
other disciplines to explore perplexities. You may attend any or all. You
will receive a certificate of attendance.
Anthony Stadlen has practised since 1970 as an existential-phenomenological
analyst. He is registered as an existential psychotherapist by the UKCP (SEA,
SPCRC) and as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist by the BPC (LCP) and the UKCP
(AIP). He is an Honorary Visiting Fellow of the School of Psychotherapy and
Counselling, Regent’s College, London. He is a former Research Fellow of the
Freud Museum, London. His research has been sponsored by the Department of
Philosophy at the University of Essex and supported by the Nuffield Foundation. He
received the 2003 Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Services to the
Cause of Civil Liberties (professional category) from the Center for Independent
Thought, New York City.





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