PSYCHOANALYSIS DISPATCH #8
Dispatch #8 enters the fray with a focus on the textures of art, writing, and the liminal spaces where they intersect. This dispatch asks: how do we navigate the often rigid frameworks of artistic discourse, reimagining stale environments to find meaning in discomfort and unease?
Estelle Hoy speaks with Elida Silvey about her book saké blue, a frenetic, vibrant exploration of contemporary art writing where Hoy dismantles the neuroses of cultural clichés and the art world’s over-reliance on jargon. In their conversation, they touch on time as a material, Pinocchio’s phallic nose, and the existential game of writing itself. Susan Finlay sits down with Caitlin McLoughlin to discuss her book The Jacques Lacan Foundation, unpacking the unlikely marriage of psychoanalysis and humour, the enduring influence of Lacan’s legacy on the arts, literature, and the bolstering of intellectual credentials. An experimental script, KleptoParasite by Maria Drăgoi, conjures murky light, worn furnishings, and an oppressive heat, creating a vivid atmosphere where tension and relief play out in equal measure, with moments of clarity as stark as the glare of fluorescent light. Finally, a poem by Dorothy Spencer, offering a moment of lyrical reprieve, its imagery resonating like a sharp intake of breath in a stifling room.
Dispatch #8 invites you to linger in spaces where art, memory, and narrative collide, creating fragments of new meaning amidst the disarray.
The Afterparty with Danielle Chelosky
#4: Sheridan Wilbur speaks to Danielle Chelosky about power dynamics in romantic relationships, the unreliable self-narrator, and desiring annihilation in Chelosky’s debut novel Pregaming Grief.
The Sky Must Be Blue
#4: Rachel Connolly writes on psychoanalytic transformation, and her experience of said transformation, by disregarding learned scripts and language to open up new ways of seeing.
Rosie In Real Life
#4: A short story of longing by Kerry Mahony
WIEN IX, BERGASSE 19
#3: WIEN IX, BERGASSE 19 by Ruby Eastwood
Katherine Angel Adventures into the Unknown
#3: Enya Ettershank talks to writer and psychoanalyst in training Katherine Angel about her upcoming book Poor Freud, the mythology and uncertainty of understanding the self through both writing and analysis and meeting our most vulnerable parts.
Writing is a Perfect Mouth
#3: Ted Simonds chews over life through writing and the archives of those who also think through the toolbox of academic writing.
Two Poems
#3: Two Poems by Melissa Lee-Houghton
Again-off
#2: Again-Off by Misha Honcharenko
Fariha Róisín on Showing us what Resilience Looks Like
#2: Caitlin McLoughlin talks to Fariha Róisín about her expansive writing practice and finding hope in the midst of despair.
All Freud’s Children with HannaH Zeavin
#2: Enya Ettershank interviews scholar, editor and writer Hannah Zeavin whose work focuses on the history of psychoanalysis, psychiatry and psychology.
THERE IS NO PERFECT SOLIDARITY
#2: An imperfect personal manifesto on love in a time of genocide, written when I couldn’t sleep. This was originally written for a broadcast on No Bounds Radio in February 2024 on the theme of ‘devotion’.
LIBERTY MY ONLY PIRATE WATER: A SESTINA
#1: Liberty My Only Pirate Water: A Sestina by Phoenix Yemi
Rays of Relation: Maggie Nelson in Conversation
#1: Caitlin McLoughlin talks to the author of The Argonauts and On Freedom about her new book Like Love, the complexities and misinterpretations of shame and taking risks.
Facing The Unknowable With Heather McCalden
#1: P. Eldridge speaks with Heather McCalden about her groundbreaking debut novel, The Observable Universe; discussing metaphors, grief, and how words make the world more observable.
Stories of Space
#1: Clem MacLeod and Lauren Elkin discuss the research and writing of Elkin’s complex Lacanian love story Scaffolding.
American Genius, A Comedy by Lynne Tillman
#1: Opening pages from: American Genius, A Comedy by Lynne Tillman