Brigid Doherty Awarded Collaborative Humanities Grant

Organized jointly by Professor Brigid Doherty (A&A and German) and New-York-City-based psychoanalyst, historian, and media theorist Ben Kafka (Associate Professor of Clinical Psychoanalysis, Department of Psychiatry, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, and Fellow, DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medicine) and funded by a Collaborative Humanities Grant from the Humanities Council, the Interdisciplinary Working Group in Psychoanalytic Studies, the Humanities, and the Arts responds to widespread interest among Princeton graduate students in the history, theory, and clinical practice of psychoanalysis. The Working Group will take an innovative approach to expanding Princeton’s intellectual community for the rigorous, critical discussion of psychoanalysis and its significance for the humanities and the arts and vice versa by opening up conversations among graduate students and practicing analysts, writers, and artists about the clinical practice of psychoanalysis as well as its history and theory.

In partnership with GradFUTURES, the Working Group will support professional development opportunities involving mentoring from psychoanalysts, writers, and editors in New York City.

The Working Group will aim to supplement the academic study of psychoanalysis at Princeton in three vital ways: (1) by providing regular occasions for discussion and debate in psychoanalytic studies across disciplines, with topics to be developed, readings selected, and speakers invited with significant input from graduate students; (2) by establishing a framework for sustained dialogue with psychoanalysts in and around New York City who are not only clinicians but also scholars and theorists of the field in which they practice; and (3) by creating opportunities for graduate students to gain insight into the intellectual and professional experiences of practitioners in a field that a small but non-trivial number of Ph.D. students may consider entering post-Ph.D., either instead of or alongside an academic appointment.

Graduate students who are interested in participating in the Interdisciplinary Working Group in Psychoanalytic Studies, the Humanities, and the Arts in 2025-26 should send a brief note with the subject line “Working Group” to Brigid Doherty.