The Impossible University
Autumn 2019–onwards
Meetings Postponed Until Further Notice
After some years of nomadic existence, The Impossible University are taking up residence at Flat Time House from the autumn of 2019. We will continue to gather in the insistent and determined spirit of an anti-institution as a place of exchange and camaraderie that might lead to new ways of working or producing.
WE ARE NOW OPEN TO APPLICANTS WITH AN INTEREST IN PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CULTURE TO COME AND JOIN US
ALL ARE WELCOME BUT PLACES ARE LIMITED
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Image: Rosa Barba for project 'Here' in collaboration with Tirana Arts Centre. Various locations, Athens, 2019
THE IMPOSSIBLE UNIVERSITY
In ‘Analysis Terminable and Interminable’ (1937), Sigmund Freud writes that ‘it almost looks as if analysis were the third of those ‘impossible’ professions in which one can be assured beforehand of achieving unsatisfactory results. The other two, which have been known much longer, are education and government’. Actually, he says this earlier, in 1925, in a preface to August Aichhorn’s Wayward Youth: ‘I have adopted the joke of the three impossible professions – as there are: educating, healing and governing’. The impossible, is the point of departure for our university.
The activities and studies of the Impossible University have no learning objectives or curriculum and they are unaccountable to any bureaucracy, even our own; they collect no feedback; there is no measurement of efficiency or outcome. In short, they belong to the basic luxury called uselessness, like our reading and our thinking, which escapes the fine calibration of value.
Faculty: David Bate, Vincent Dachy, Diana Georgiou, Marc Hulson, Kazimierz Jankowski, Sharon Kivland, Chris Kul-Want, Jack Littell, Joseph Noonan-Ganley, Paul O’Kane, Paula Smithard, Nina Wakeford, Francis Wasser
Previous sessions:
Monday 14 October
WE
Please click here to download notes
To book for the first event on Monday 14 October, please email [email protected] with the ‘The Impossible University’ in the subject box.
Monday 11 November
WE TOO
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To book for the next event on Monday 11 November, please email [email protected] with the ‘The Impossible University’ in the subject box.
Monday 9 December
THEY
Please click here to download notes from the previous session
To book please email [email protected] with the ‘The Impossible University’ in the subject box.
Monday 20 January
OTHER
Please click here to download notes from the previous session
To book please email [email protected] with the ‘The Impossible University’ in the subject box.
Monday 24 February 6.30pm to 8.30pm
MÉCONNAISSANCE IS NOT TO MÉCONNAITRE MY SUBJECTIVITY
‘Since in this case, here in Baltimore, it would seem that the Other is naturally English-speaking, it would really be doing myself violence to speak French. But the question that this person raised, that it would perhaps be difficult and even a little ridiculous for me to speak English, is an important argument and I also know that there are many French-speaking people present that do not understand English at all; for these my choice of English would be a security, but perhaps I would not wish them to be so secure and in this case I shall speak a little French as well’.
This paragraph is immediately after the paragraph for the last session,
https://www.lacan.com/hotel.htm
Please click here to download notes
This session continues the conversation around the themes of WE, WE TOO, and THEY, OTHER, begun on 14 October
To book please email [email protected] with the ‘The Impossible University’ in the subject box.