Author Archives: PsyArt

By: Frank Stringfellow  Abstract: Identifying Gilbert Osmond as the embodiment of evil is a commonplace observation in the voluminous commentary on Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. However, critics of the novel have been remiss in providing a comprehensive examination of Osmond’s nefarious actions and the depraved personality behind them. This essay deciphers evidenceContinue reading “Henry James’s Portrait of Evil: A Study in Narcissistic Rage”

By: Laurie Johnson Abstract: This article explores Immanuel Kant’s contributions to psychology (specifically, the “Dreams of a Spirit-Seer” of 1766 and the “Classification of Mental Disorders” of 1764) in order to illuminate some connections between critical philosophy and psychology. Early in his career, and, surprisingly, in texts about hallucinations and mental illness, Kant’s expositions onContinue reading “Toward a Psychological History of Philosophy: Kant’s Dreams of a Spirit-Seer (Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik, 1766)”

By: Andrew Gordon Abstract: The Book of Daniel is a fictionalized version of the case of the Rosenbergs, JewishAmerican Communists electrocuted by the American government as atomic spies in 1953. It is told by Daniel Isaacson, child of executed spies, in the form of his doctoral dissertation, but the structure of the narrative reflects Daniel’sContinue reading “Mourning and Melancholia in E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel”

By: Matt Bennett Abstract: Sookie Stackhouse, the protagonist of HBO’s True Blood, is a telepath who has grown up knowing what people “really” think. From the first episode, however, moments suggest we view her character symptomatically—after all, she hears voices in her head. The series then becomes an illustration of Lacanian concepts of subjectivity andContinue reading “Sookie and Symptom, Vampire and Void: Irruption of the Real in True Blood”

By: Robert Silhol Abstract: This paper looks at structure and subject, and tackles what do we know of Oedipus’ desire. It also advances the proposition that the idea of ‘structure and subject’ can be said to represent a short history of psychoanalytical thinking in itself.

By: Joke Spruyt Abstract: In the Middle Ages it was only natural to believe in a celestial, absolute, eternal, nonmaterial world beyond our everyday experiences. Yet for many medievals, theologians and philosophers alike, the existence of such a transcendent reality posed a problem, for how can human beings, who after all belong to the worldContinue reading “Henry of Ghent and the Power of Inspiration. A Chapter in Neoplatonism”

By: John J. Marinan Abstract: Simon Baron Cohen formulated mindblindness as a theory to explain the deficits existing in the autistic brain. These deficit metaphors, while deeply cognitivist, belie significant figurative and metaphorical techniques of persuasion of both lay and scientific audiences. Given the cultural currency of the theory, other scholars from humanities backgrounds appliedContinue reading “Mindblindness Theory: Touchstone for Interdisciplinarity”

By: Laura B. Vogel Abstract: This essay proposes that Shakespeare’s Cleopatra is a male fantasy of a love object for Antony. She is an extravagantly feminine construction of a character who effects a transformation in Antony that enables him to finally perceive himself as a heroic lover as well as a heroic warrior. A fluidityContinue reading “Cleopatra: Antony’s Transformational Object”

By: Katherine Montwieler & Mark E. Boren Abstract: Within this essay, we argue that The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allan Poe suggests the nascent United States was gripped by a great anxiety and that the novel functions as a gothic alternative to the traditional American bildungsroman penned by Cooper or Melville. LookingContinue reading “Hybridity, Anxiety, and Wombs of Destruction in Edgar Allan Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket”

By: Liam C. Butchart Abstract: William Faulkner’s classic Southern Gothic novel As I Lay Dying is more than just an experiment in modernist techniques: it is a novel that expressly examines its characters’ minds, a work containing great psychological depth. This paper will examine the psychological reactions of five members of the Bundren family toContinue reading “Death, Mourning and Human Selfishness: Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying Through a Freudian Lens”