The Polarized Binaries of American Culture:
A Psychosocial and Feminist Analysis
with Lynn S. Chancer, Ph.D.
Saturday, October 30, 2021
11-1PM
Zoom
2 CEUs available for NYS Social Workers
This course will explore how binaries are deeply embedded within, and have consequences for, American culture. It will start with a psychoanalytically oriented discussion of binaries through Melanie Klein’s concept of splitting and also with Lynn Chancer’s analysis of sadomasochism in her work on *Sadomasochism in Everyday Life*. Next, the course will move toward examining the role binaries have played in media dynamics and the legal system through an analysis of high profile crime cases from the Central Park Jogger and O.J. Simpson case through more recent well-known instances. Finally, contemporary feminist debates will be considered – from antagonized debates of the 1980s and 1990s that divided considerations of sexism from discussions of sexual freedom, through ongoing debates about reproductive choice, gender and sexualities. Through all these examples, the course will explore the extent to which binary and polarized categories narrow social and political discourse, creating potentially troubling and divisive ramifications. I will end by defining “psychosocial thought” as this approach encourages thinking and feeling in more complex ways that better illuminate both our inner psychic and outer social worlds.
Registration is now closed.
Lynn S. Chancer is Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the Executive Officer of the PhD Program in Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She teaches and writes about American culture, social and feminist theory and issues of gender, race and class bias. She is also especially interested in the emerging academic area of psychosocial studies. Chancer has written six books including *Sadomasochism in Everyday Life* (Rutgers University Press); *After the Rise and Stall of American Feminism (Stanford University Press); *High Profile Crimes: When Legal Cases Become Social Causes* (University of Chicago Press); and *The Unhappy Divorce of Sociology and Psychoanalysis (Palgrave London, with John Andrews), as well as many articles on psychosocial theory and American culture.