Events so far

The Sugar and Salt of Human Touch: A Psychoanalytic Exploration in the Context of Caste

This talk explores the concepts of touchability and untouchability within the cultural framework of caste, using a psychoanalytic lens. The first part focuses on untouchability in its material-corporeal sense, examining how certain relationships are deemed “improper” or “impure.” The discussion draws insights from the film Samskara, based on U. R. Ananthamurthy’s novel, to contextualize these themes. The second part investigates untouchability from a psychoanalytical perspective, considering emotional disengagement and the “caste unconscious” that operates subtly within institutional spaces like university classrooms. This talk aims to uncover how such unconscious dynamics perpetuate social othering.

Speaker:

• Dr. Deepti SachdevPsychodynamic Psychotherapist, Poet, and Former Faculty at the School of Human Studies, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University, Delhi

Discussants:

• Prof. Ashok Nagpal
  Psychoanalytic Therapist and Visiting Professor, School of Liberal Studies, BMU
• Prof. Anup Dhar
  Fellow, Hans Kilian and Lotte Köhler Center, Ruhr University Bochum