Despite a steady decline since its peak of influence in the 1950s, psychoanalysis remains an influential framework for analyzing cultural and political phenomena. Originally crafted as a way to grapple with the clinical puzzles of psychopathology around the beginning of the last century, the insights and theories of the pioneers of psychoanalysis were almost immediately put to use to help us understand aspects of our aesthetic and political cultures that had defied explanation and confounded critics. Concepts like the unconscious, neurosis, sublimation and defense, have all been applied to a wide range of problems in public life and the arts in ways that have deepened our understanding into the human animal and its cultural productions. This course is meant to introduce students to a selection of influential psychoanalytic writings on culture, as well as subsequent critiques of psychoanalysis by skeptics and former adherents. Our aim will be to understand this historically influential tradition while considering its limitations, and, potentially, its future promise. [Track C]