Rendering Unconscious episode 107.
Rendering Unconscious welcomes Klara Naszkowska, Ph.D to the podcast!
This episode revolves around the formation and goals of the International Association for Spielrein Studies, initiated by Klara Naszkowska and John Launer to connect scholars of Sabina Spielrein, a pioneering psychoanalyst. They aim to access and preserve Spielrein’s extensive but underutilized papers, including around 2,000 letters. The association has translated her works from Russian to English and plans a conference in Warsaw, focusing on her contributions to psychoanalysis and language development. Naszkowska also discusses her shift from studying Spielrein’s relationships to her theoretical work and her project on Jewish women analysts who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1930s, which became the book Early Women Psychoanalysts. History, Biography, and Contemporary Relevance (Routledge, 2024). The discussion also touches on the broader implications of historical and contemporary political events, the impact of the pandemic, and the importance of community and support.
Klara Naszkowska, Ph.D., Cultural Historian specialising in the early history of psychoanalysis. Founding director of the International Association for Spielrein Studies, 2019/2020 Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University. Author of The Living Mirror: The Representation of Doubling Identities in the British and Polish Women’s Literature (1846-1938) (2014), Early Women Psychoanalysts. History, Biography, and Contemporary Relevance (2024), and many articles in Polish and English.
