Since the early twentieth century, psychoanalysis has profoundly shaped how we understand human experience. Concepts such as repression, neurosis, and the unconscious have entered everyday language while also becoming foundational to the critical study of culture. This course examines the meaning and significance of the work of Sigmund Freud—the catalyst of the psychoanalytic movement—and its contribution to cultural studies. We will begin with Freud’s foundational writings on hysteria, dreams, and human sexual development to trace the contours of psychoanalysis as a form of knowledge about the self. We will then read Freud’s writings on group psychology, memory, modern culture, and religion, which link knowledge of the self with political and cultural life. [Track C]