OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
What is ‘psychoanalytic sociology’? Does it exist as a recognised field of study, either as a sub-field of sociology, or as a sub-field of psychoanalysis? Referencing the Brexit-Trump phenomenon and Fintan O’Toole’s recent book, ‘Heroic Failure’, I will argue the need for psychoanalytic sociology to become established on a more resilient basis. Despite the undoubted importance of Freud for some major figures and schools of thought in sociology, the place of psychoanalysis in the sociological field has seemed to be an elusive and tenuous one. From time to time, there have indeed been fruitful interactions between these two powerful paradigms, describing and explaining phenomena that neither could fully grasp alone. But then, each of these ‘fields’ has largely withdrawn to its own primary area of study, avoiding the other as beyond its grasp and concern. In this paper I will seek to explain how this situation has come about, and ask what might have to happen for this situation to change.
