Dr Carolyn Laubender

Biography

I am a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex, where I am the founding Co-Director of the MA in Gender & Sexuality Studies. My interdisciplinary research interests include psychoanalytic theory and history; feminist theory; queer theory; trans studies; and 20th century Anglophone literature and film. Prior to joining Essex, I taught in The Program in Literature and The Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University in the US. I hold a Ph.D. from the Program in Literature at Duke University (with dual Certifications in Feminist Studies and College Teaching) and a BA in Gender Studies and Literature from Lehigh University. I also serve as the Book Reviews Editor for Psychoanalysis & History. As an interdisciplinary scholar, my research explores the history of psychoanalysis and the affiliated "psy" mind sciences with an eye toward how such histories can help us reshape pressing ethical and political questions today. For instance, in my first book, The Political Clinic (Columbia UP, 2024), I turn to the psychoanalytic clinic to explore how, across the 20th century, psychoanalysts became formidable political actors through their clinical practice, where they implicitly transformed the privatized space of the clinic into a proto-political laboratory for reimagining the formations of race, gender, colonialism, childhood, empire, and democracy. By delving into case studies from across Britain and its former colonies, this book combines history with feminist and decolonial social theory to recast the clinic as a productive site for novel political thought, theorization, and action. This work was the winner of the 2025 Book Prize of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Previously, I have also written about Freud, autotheory, and the "plural self"; creativity, femininity, and aesthetics; psychoanalysis and literature; psychological and political conceptions of reparation; art and imperialism in the clinic; and the triangulation of agency, sexual difference, and the gaze in 19th century scientific narrative. As with this writing, all of my work tends to be concerned with how psychological and psychoanalytic theories inform, impact, reorient, or unsettle our contemporary understanding of gender, race, sexuality, colonialism, justice, and identity more generally. Currently, I am working on two new projects. The first is a commissioned new edition of Oxford UP’s Very Short Introduction to Freud (under contract; expected 2027), which will be a timely and accessible work of public humanities scholarship designed to explain Freud's relevance to a 21st century audience. The second is a special issue of Psychoanalysis & History entitled "Trans-Analytics: Psychoanalysis, Gender, and History" (expected 2026) that will explore the pressing intersections, gaps, and discords that have long characterized the relationship between transgender experience and psychoanalytic theory and practice, globally conceived. At Essex, I teach graduate and undergraduate courses on feminist, queer, and trans theory; psychoanalytic history; and 20th century literature and film. When it comes to supervision, I welcome prospective PhD students whose research focuses on any of the following areas of specialization: • Feminist , Queer, and Trans Theory • Psychoanalytic History •. Radical Politics & The Clinic • Generationality & Intergenerational Relationships • Psychosocial approaches to Gender and Sexuality • Post/Decolonial Theory • Psychoanalysis, Literature, and Film All inquiries about PhD supervision should include a CV as well as a 5000-word (or so) project proposal, inclusive of: a description of the intended project & its intervention; a literature review; a methodology (where applicable); and a bibliography.

Qualifications

• PhD Duke University,

Appointments

University of Essex

• Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer), Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex (1/10/2020 - present)

• Programme Director, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Essex (1/8/2022 - present)

• Assistant Professor (Lecturer), Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex (1/8/2018 - 1/10/2020)

Other academic

• Adjunct Instructor, The Program in Literature, Duke University (1/8/2017 - 31/5/2018)