Joan K. Copjec

Joan Copjec, professor in the departments of English and Comparative Literature, is also director of the UB Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture. The Center was developed in order "to bring together faculty and graduate students interested in investigating the clinical and nonclinical implications of Freudian theory."

With research interests in feminism, psychoanalysis, art, architecture, film, and film theory, Copjec is often involved in a wide range of projects. For the 2004-2005 academic year, she is a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, working on her project Kiarostami's Reserve: Shame, Cinema and the Social Bond.

Copjec obtained her M.A. in Contemporary Literature from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a diploma in Film Studies from the Slade School of Fine Art at the University College in London, and her doctorate in Cinema Studies from New York University. Before coming to UB, she taught at Sci-Arc in Los Angeles and at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies and City College's School of Architecture, Urban Design, and Landscape Architecture in New York City.

Copjec is the author of Read My Desire: Lacan Against the Historicists (1994) and Imagine There's No Woman: Ethics and Sublimation (2002) and has edited six other book-length works. In addition, she has been a contributing editor and writer on several academic journals and texts including lacanian ink. She is also the former editor of the journal October.

Affiliation(s): English, Comparative Literature
Record Group(s): 16, 16

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