The events of September 11, 2001 fundamentally changed the world for many in the United States. It was shocking and horrifying -- it was, in a word, traumatic. This trauma took on a new dimension with the release of the horrifying Abu Ghraib "torture photographs" in 2004. Large-scale traumatic events such as September 11 and the Abu Ghraib revelations can impact not only the individual and his or her personal identity, but entire social bodies and its corresponding national identity as well. This study investigates how the American social body psychically dealt with the horror of these national traumas and socially negotiated what it means to "be an American." Specifically, it examines a disparate group of rhetorical artifacts, from articles in mainstream news reports to popular horror films, and looks for emergent patterns to provide insight into the larger whole. This study draws on a variety of theoretical perspectives and employs a method of close reading and frame genre analysis to organize and understand the complex interplay of forces tuned toward a deeper understanding of the rhetorical dimensions of horror in times of social upheaval. It focuses first on the mainstream news organizations reporting of both September 11 and Abu Ghraib to outline the master narrative and counter-narrative that emerged. It then analyzes three sets of films in the popular culture to better understand how the nation attempted to rhetorically constitute an "American Subject" in the wake of a horrifying trauma. The study concludes with an analysis of the different psychical subject positions that may be taken in the rhetorical negotiation of the American Subject and offers an explanation of the rhetorical function of the torture porn horror genre in this time of national trauma. / text

This thesis provides an inter-disciplinary study of selected works by Ingmar Bergman. I explore how key concepts from Melanie Klein and Jean-Paul Sartre apply to the focus on characters in a state of heightened imagination; and the value placed on imagination in the construction of these films. This involves recognition of the way an active response from the viewer is encouraged. Klein, Sartre and Bergman also attend to contextual factors that challenge any notion of subjectivity as sovereign and the power of imagination is frequently placed in a social context. All three figures develop their ideas within specialised fields drawing on the influence of others. Chapter 2 shows how Klein’s ideas relate to the influence of Freud before exploring how her work can be applied to Bergman’s films through the example of Wild Strawberries. Chapter 3 concentrates on Sartre’s early work, The Imaginary and considers how this is significant in relation to some of Sartre’s better-known philosophical ideas developed during and after the Second World War. These ideas will lead to an exploration of The Seventh Seal. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 focus on three films from distinct parts of Bergman’s career: Summer with Monika, The Virgin Spring and Hour of the Wolf. In Chapter 4 this will be preceded by a brief over-view of three more films from the early part of Bergman’s career. These chapters explore how Kleinian and Sartrean ideas can be incorporated in close analysis, and alongside selected critical responses to the films. The analysis integrates key points from Klein and Sartre in a methodology specific to film studies. This will include analysis of cinematic elements such as camera work and lighting, and recognition of narrative structure and character development

This text seeks to provide an account of the subject as a consumer of mass-media. As such, the contemporary consumer must interact with corporate entities as socio-cultural institutions that enable a self-administration of gratification. The case under discussion is that of the Walt Disney Company, which is perhaps the most iconic purveyor of consumable media in the world. It is argued that the Walt Disney Company is structurally perverse, that the gratification of the Disney consumer is achieved at their expense, and that this expense is to the benefit of Disney commercially and structurally as a major socio-cultural institution. This text makes use of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, film and cultural studies, and the industrial-organisational history of the Walt Disney Company to create an account of the subject's interactions within the apparatus of Disney media. The account of consumerism constructed within this text is organised by a synthesis of several theoretical constructs: the animated homunculus, the regressive cinematic apparatus and the Disney consumerist utopia. The homunculus refers to a point of contact for the subject's gratification. It is a fetishistic device used in animated films to create a focal point for the viewer's desire and identifications. This operates within the subject's relation to the screen as apparatus, which in the case of Disney is demonstrated to be regressive in its narrative structure and stylistic content. The regressive pleasures of Disney media support a system and economy of gratification that crystallizes in Disney as a commercial entity. The ideological and structural core of the Disney entity is demonstrated to be a utopian vision of consumerism and self-administration of gratification. The creation of socio-cultural structures that enable the subject to self-administrate their gratification is shown to be related to the problem of addiction; a dependency on consumables and consumption itself. Together these concepts create a holistic account of Disney as an object of study, as both commercial entity, visual medium and cultural institution.

There has been a long-standing and mutually-informing association between psychoanalysis, literature and the arts. Surprisingly, given the oral/aural basis of the ‘talking cure’, music has largely been overlooked by psychoanalysis. On the other hand, neuroscientific research investigating music reception and production has been increasing steadily in range and scope over the years. However, in order to avoid confounding factors, empirical studies have focused primarily on non-vocal music. Operatic vocal music has not featured prominently in either field. Yet the multidimensional, multi-layered nature of opera, which fuses together a number of different arts, would appear to provide fertile soil for both disciplines. This thesis aims to fill that gap, providing a stepping stone for further research. The individual strengths of psychoanalysis and neuroscience are leveraged separately at first, according to a ‘complementarist’ approach, and then jointly as the inter-discipline of neuropsychoanalysis. By combining various theories of mind with current knowledge about music processing in the brain, a more comprehensive understanding of the reception experience can be achieved. As a result, a neuropsychoanalytic theory can be formulated to account for the operatic reception experience in subjective as well as objective terms. According to this theoretical formulation, the bittersweet enjoyment of operatic vocal music, which can literally move an operaphile to tears, lies in a numberof subjective dynamics that are unique to the reception of opera, rather than in any distinct objective neural processes, which are common to the reception of all music. These subjective dynamics, which are recruited during neural processing, are triggered by the equally unique features of the operatic voice, in combination with a number of auxiliary elements that are specific to opera.

This is the history of a mental health project conducted in the schools of Forest Hill, Ontario during the 1950s. Its original name was the Forest Hill Village Project but it became famous in history as Crestwood Heights, the book written about the project by John R. Seeley, Alex Sim and Elizabeth Loosley. The Forest Hill Village Project was a significant event in Canadian history not only as part of the first mental health grants ever issued by the federal government; but also as the first major attempt to address the mental health needs of children in school. Hatched at the highest levels of military planning during the Second World War, the Forest Hill Village Project would involve senior government and university administrators as well as psychiatrists, social workers and teachers from across Canada in an experiment in psychoanalytic pedagogy. John R. Seeley was the only individual, however, whose fate was so inextricably linked with the project that it cannot be understood apart from him. It was because of Seeley's genius that a mental health revolution from the top-down was attempted in Canadian history, and it was because of his own psychological issues that it failed. The martyrdom of John R. Seeley did not consist simply in the irony of his own fall into mental illness while leading a mental health project in the schools of Forest Hill, but also in his being effectively banished from Canadian society because of his efforts. The admixture of Seeley's personal issues and his revolutionary commitment to mass psychoanalysis eventually brought him into irreconcilable conflict with the more conservative leadership of Canada's medical and educational establishment. Though Seeley was forced out of teaching in Canada, the history of his mental health revolution may yet open doorways for the future of mental health in Canadian schools.

This is the history of a mental health project conducted in the schools of Forest Hill, Ontario during the 1950s. Its original name was the Forest Hill Village Project but it became famous in history as Crestwood Heights, the book written about the project by John R. Seeley, Alex Sim and Elizabeth Loosley. The Forest Hill Village Project was a significant event in Canadian history not only as part of the first mental health grants ever issued by the federal government; but also as the first major attempt to address the mental health needs of children in school. Hatched at the highest levels of military planning during the Second World War, the Forest Hill Village Project would involve senior government and university administrators as well as psychiatrists, social workers and teachers from across Canada in an experiment in psychoanalytic pedagogy. John R. Seeley was the only individual, however, whose fate was so inextricably linked with the project that it cannot be understood apart from him. It was because of Seeley's genius that a mental health revolution from the top-down was attempted in Canadian history, and it was because of his own psychological issues that it failed. The martyrdom of John R. Seeley did not consist simply in the irony of his own fall into mental illness while leading a mental health project in the schools of Forest Hill, but also in his being effectively banished from Canadian society because of his efforts. The admixture of Seeley's personal issues and his revolutionary commitment to mass psychoanalysis eventually brought him into irreconcilable conflict with the more conservative leadership of Canada's medical and educational establishment. Though Seeley was forced out of teaching in Canada, the history of his mental health revolution may yet open doorways for the future of mental health in Canadian schools.

The spate of people with body piercings has drastically increased, yet research on this issue has been frugal. This research was undertaken to develop an understanding of the meanings that multiple body piercings has for women, specifically in terms of their experiences of piercing. Moreover, an emphasis was placed on attaining the participants' experiences of their (i)dentity(ies), and body image in terms of their piercings. A hermeneutic phenomenology methodology was used to develop this understanding premised upon the participants' experiences of multiple body piercings. The sample consisted of six women participants. Their ages ranged from twenty-one to twenty-eight. Interviews conducted, were transcribed verbatim. The interpretation of the data, was informed by a feminist psychoanalytic perspective. There were four themes overall. The over-arching theme that subsequently emerged, was that of Defence(s) against Loss, the second theme was that of (I)dentity, the third was Piercings and Femininity, and finally, the fourth theme was that of Control. Each of the themes were further broken down into significant sub-themes. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2002.

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Linking the images of stars as contrasting as Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, and Gloria Swanson, and uniting genres like romantic comedy, film noir, and melodrama, the figure of the narcissistic woman stands as a versatile, ever-present extra- and intra-diegetic force in the dream factory of classical Hollywood. She is, in fact, the lead in what sociologist Edgar Morin conceptualizes in The Stars (1957) as a golden-age “myth of love”: Calling upon the psychic and sensory investment of her fans with her otherworldly aura and material impact, the female star emerges as both the active subject of romantic narratives and the admired on-screen partner in a love affair with the spectator. Like Ovid's original Narcissus before her, the narcissistic woman of Hollywood exists, as Morin describes it, to “focus…love's magic on [herself].” Contemporary film theory, however, has interpreted the star not as a subjective force in this dialogical “magic” between actress and spectator but rather as the product of a patriarchal system of filmmaking, one that objectifies women both on the screen and in the audience. In an effort to further analyze the questions of identity and representation evoked by the female star and her audience, this thesis will seek an alternative to the binaries that tend to characterize the traditional understanding of women in classic Hollywood (that is, spectator/star, narcissistic subject/idealized object; male/female, active/passive). Rather than read narcissism as a one-dimensional, monologic preoccupation with one's image, this research posits that classic cinematic representations of the woman's relationship to the self invite an examination of the existential complexity of a figure negotiating the registers of corporeal reality and ethereal ideality, star persona and diegetic character. In the hopes of highlighting the active engagements – between star and role; spectator, actress, and filmic form itself – inspired by these cinematic entities and their “myths of love,” this work will connect psychoanalytic concerns with Edgar Morin's cultural history of Hollywood, Laura U. Marks's theory of haptic visuality, and the phenomenological understanding of film outlined by Vivian Sobchack in an exploration of the embodied subjectivities borne by the on-screen Narcissus and her off-screen audience.

It was for the longest time that the mother in Freud troubled me. Unlike some feminist psychoanalysts such as Julia Kristeva who argue that the mother/maternity in Freud is finally to be thought of as a ‘massive nothing’ (Kristeva, 1987: 255), I knew that the mother was there/da, but it was how she was there that concerned me and forms the basis of this thesis. Freud shows us the mother in his work when he argues that the child’s first love object in its truest sense is the mother, ‘and all of his sexual instincts with their demand for satisfaction have been united upon this object’ (SE 18: 111). I highlight the ‘his’ because Freud’s focus on this first love object is primarily male. And although Freud does not differentiate between the little girl and little boy at this early stage, thereafter the girls relationship to the mother, argues Freud, ends in ‘hate’. She cannot be forgiven for not giving the little girl a penis. But the mother as a primordial ‘object’ not only becomes lost (and thereafter we are all involved in a search to ‘refind ‘it’/‘her’) but she seems also to be, uniformly Mater/matter to be overlooked. To use a rather explosive analogy, it is as if the mother and Freud are together yet separated in a double-barreled shotgun, with the misfiring of one barrel obscuring (obliterating) the other. Freud in fact used a similar analogy in an explanation for anxiety. Here the rifle is pointed at the ‘wild beast’ a description that Freud uses to describe the unruly forces of the libido in the unconscious. A fitting parallel then because the mother has a relation to anxiety and the unconscious that might best be described as central. Thus Freud writes and the mother is ‘shaded’. Again an apt analogy one that Freud himself uses to describe the Odyssean like shades that invade the unconscious as ghosts and taste blood. If the mother is indeed the dark-continent, a simile for the unconscious, or at least her sexuality, which after all is what is important in Freud’s Oedipal theory, then the question might be asked, ‘is the mother a ghost that haunts our living lives’? Of course a living mother is not a ghost, but then a literal explanation neglects the repression that accompanies the developing ego, an ego no less that is subject to childhood amnesia during the middle years of childhood. The Prologue introduces us to Freud the man. It seemed to me at the onset of this thesis that the mother is both universalised but also personalised. If Freud did not mourn his mother, why might this be so? And how is Freud himself mourned, remembered, outside his work? Chapter One is an introduction to Freud’s work, asking where the mother might be, and even why she may or may not be recognised in areas that seem peculiar to a space that mothers might occupy. Chapter Two looks at feminist psychoanalysts and asks how they engage with both Freud the man, and Freudian psychoanalysis and thereafter the later schools of psychoanalysis. Chapter Three engages with Freud and Freudian theory, offering an in-depth engagement with particular psychoanalytic concepts and places where the mother might be, or should be, but for some reason is not. Chapter Four explores the concept of anxiety, itself singled out as somehow having an integral relationship to the mother but again, Freud by a less than careful sleight of hand writes the mother out. And yet this is not a direct writing out, because Freud circulates around the point, the navel as it were, offering a kind of adverse reckoning, the mother is there but also, she is not. Chapter Five concludes this thesis by looking at several different theories, including Christopher Bollas’s ‘clowning mother’, and asks how might they offer alternative ways of understanding the mother, both within Freud and as an extension of Freud.