As a young candidate transferring from the field of performing arts and theory into psychoanalysis, I am struck by their provocative resonances. In addition to theoretical connections, I have noticed between psychoanalysis and performing arts/performance studies…
The “fourth wall” is a technical device used by actors. It works in the following way: Actors choose a spot in the back of the theater, internalize it, and move on with the action, bypassing the potential interference of….
Room never knows where the next submission will come from. With every essay, poem, photograph, image of art, piece of music, or description of activism…
Anniversaries exist as a demand to remember and, as such, they have a great deal in common with the work of psychoanalysis. Looking back from the vantage of ROOM’s first anniversary, it is amazing to recall that ROOM might not have happened at all but for a fortuitous accident.
The folks in the images appearing with this essay hold the traumas of racism, immigration, natural disaster and genocide. I show these faces because they reflect experiences of trauma so many of us Americans contain, directly or intergenerationally. I point to these images also to reflect on the ongoing fact that Donald Trump and his supporters’ aggressive words, policies and actions
against these already vulnerable people — against what is vulnerable in us all — has been traumatizing or re traumatizing for far too many.
It feels impossible to begin this introduction to Room 9.17 without mentioning the attack in Charlottesville even though, by the time you read this, that horrific August weekend will likely be occluded by whatever will have happened next. ROOM is not a blog. It is not a tweet. It is not a newsletter at one with the news. ROOM is a re-occurring place of reflection…
The day in April that Ivanka Trump appeared on the dais with Angela Merkel at the Women’s Summit in Berlin, I was in my office. I was listening to a vibrant and astute young woman in her twenties as she confessed, a little sheepishly, that her new shirt had “trendy” sleeves…
We are grateful to both Leni and Samera for letting us share their words publically and for giving us the idea of having a ‘Letters to ROOM’ section. The creation of ROOM is an unfolding process between the editorial team and the community…
For the previous issue of ROOM, I contributed a piece that argued against the idealization of tolerance, diversity and understanding that I see so many in the psychoanalytic community currently engaged in. I’m aware that some readers…
There was a time when I thought that two words—gay and lesbian— and therefore two letters—g and l— sufficed. I now know—in fact I think I always did—that the words gay and lesbian never really did justice to the exceedingly complex variability…
