Fridays @ CCP Lecture Series
****A recording will NOT be available for this session****
Sheldon George, PhD
(New York, NY)
The Sutured Subject of Race and the Obscene Pleasures of Racism
Friday April 16, 2027
7-9pm (CST)
1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago
& ZOOM
Join us for drinks and light appetizers before the lecture!
Reception: 6:30 - 7:00 PM (CST)
Lecture begins at 7 :00 PM(CST)
We look forward to welcoming you—whether in person or virtually via Zoom.
About the presentation: In this talk, Sheldon George will engage race and racism through a focus on psychoanalytic theory, racial whiteness, and African American identity. He will deploy the Lacanian psychoanalytic concept of jouissance, or excessive, painful pleasure, to argue that race and racism structure contemporary subjectivity in relation to a jouissance of race. This jouissance, he will suggest, sutures race to subjectivity, stitching race into the psyche of the modern subject. While race mends the lack in white subjectivity to produce a fantasy of wholeness, racism aims at unraveling the psychic cohesion of black subjects. Through analysis of the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, a reading of creativity in African American culture and music, and an interpretation of Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise, George will suggest the means through which African Americans protect themselves psychically against the traumas that assail the black psyche.
Sheldon George is Chair and Professor of Africana Studies at University of Massachusetts Boston. George’s scholarship focuses on race and racism through a study of culture, literature, and theory. His book Trauma and Race, published in 2016, was the first to offer an extended Lacanian analysis of African American identity. George is coeditor of Reading Contemporary Black British and African American Women Writers (2020). His publications include the pioneering collection of essays Lacan and Race: Racism, Identity and Psychoanalytic Theory (2021). His most recent book, published in 2024, is the collection Experimental Subjectivities in Global Black Women’s Writing: Race and Narrative Innovation. George is an Associate Editor of Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society who has coedited two special issues of that journal and two special issues of Studies in Gender and Sexuality. He is a former Chair of the Executive Committee of the Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Literature forum of the MLA, and he holds the title of Extraordinary Professor of English at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Learning Objectives
1.Participants will be able to understand the role of otherness in Lacanian theory
2.Participants will be able to apply key Lacanian concepts like Suture and Jouissance to a psychoanalytic understanding of race and racism
This is a Beginers Level Presentation
Fees
CCP members: free with annual $195 membership, payable at registration.
Students:free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.
New Fellows / Ongoing: free with annual $250/$300 membership, payable at registration.
Non-CCP members, single admission: $50
Continuing Education
This program is sponsored for Continuing Education Credits by the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. There is no commercial support for this program, nor are there any relationships between the continuing education sponsor, presenting organization, presenter, program content, research, grants or other funding that could be construed as conflicts of interest. Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program. If the program content becomes stressful, participants are encouraged to process these feelings during discussion periods. The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis maintains responsibility for this program and its content. CCP is licensed by the state of Illinois to sponsor continuing education credits for Licensed Clinical Social Workers, Licensed Social Workers, Licensed Clinical Professional Counselors, Licensed Professional Counselors, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapy Counselors and Licensed Clinical Psychologists (license no. 159.000941 and 268.000020 and 168.000238 Illinois Dept. of Financial and Professional Regulation).
Professionals holding the aforementioned credentials will receive 2.0 continuing education credits for attending the entire program. To receive these credits a completed evaluation form must be turned in at the end of the presentation and licensed psychologists must first complete a brief exam on the subject matter. No continuing education credit will be given for attending part of the presentation. Refunds for CE credit after the program begins will not be honored. If a participant has special needs or concerns about the program, s/he/they should contact Toula Kourliouros Kalven by April 15, 2027 at: tkalven@ccpsa.org
References/Suggested Readings
Aulagnier, P. (2015). Birth of a body, origin of a history. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 96(5), 1371–1401.
Charles, M. (2024). Somatization and symbolization. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 84:57-78.
Charles, M. (2025). Re-finding the feminine: Forgotten threads of meaning in psychoanalysis. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 85:531-553.
Charles, M. (2025). Echoes of Trauma: Meaning and Identity in Psychoanalysis. APA Books.
Crociani-Windland, L., & Charles, M. (Eds.). (2022). Repositioning the maternal: An intimate pedagogy [Special issue]. Journal of Psychosocial Studies,15(2).
Leikert, S. (2021). Encapsulated body engrams and somatic narration – Integrating body memory into psychoanalytic technique. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 102(4):671-688.
Lombardi, R. (2025) Transference onto the Body: Beyond the Relational, the Symbolic, and Hystorical. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 35:719-732.
Presented by
The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/CCP Program Committee