The milieu of buried stimuli: Relational theory and literary studies

Abstract

In this series of reflections on the ways in which psychoanalytic theory has influenced his teaching, the author focuses on a change that began to take place around the time of his encounter with relational psychoanalytical theory. At the heart of that change was a shift in the direction of processual thinking and emotional presence, guided by several contemporary theorists but most importantly by Christopher Bollas. By showing how that shift altered his approach to Alain Resnais's Night and Fog and the works of Herman Melville, and how it led to the development of a course called “Race and Relationality,” the author suggests that relational theory, broadly conceived, can make it possible for literary critics to stay in touch with the bit‐by‐bit process of experiencing texts. In the midst of that process, we are in a state of consciousness that is much different from the state in which we analytically sort and interpret, and in that dim, intermixing milieu, we can come to know things that we would not otherwise have known.

Collaborative agency and relationality in a high school/college poetry partnership

“…Winnicott, from his experience as a pediatrician and psychoanalyst, theorizes individuals’ capacities for “creative living” and contributions to and participation in “cultural experience” (1978:100) as deriving from psychological interactions between persons. While the concept of relationality has roots in developmental psychology and psychoanalysis, contemporary scholars in Black studies (Feldman, 2016), queer studies (Muñoz, 2009), and literary studies (Sanborn, 2022) are engaging with relationality, as are childhood studies scholars such as Gitz-Johansen (2022) in exploring very young children’s and adults’ participation in moments of shared awareness and interest, and Rimmer (2017) in discussing children’s “relational interdependencies” (568) in experiences with music.…”