ABOUT

Carolyn Laubender, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex, where she is the founding Co-Director of the MA in Gender & Sexuality Studies. Her interdisciplinary research interests include feminist and queer theory, the medical humanities, psychoanalytic history, postcolonial theory, and 20th century Anglophone literature and film. Prior to joining Essex, Carolyn taught in The Program in Literature and The Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University in the US, where she was awarded fellowships from both Duke and from the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA). She holds 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. She also serves as the Book Reviews Editor for Psychoanalysis & History.

Carolyn’s first book, The Political Clinic: Psychoanalysis and Social Change in the 20th Century (Columbia UP, May 2024), takes up her interest in psychoanalysis to explore the under-acknowledged political work performed in and through the psychoanalytic clinic, which has long been held to be a site of neutrality, impartiality, and apoliticality. Her current and forthcoming projects explore: the relationship between queer care networks and intergenerational sexuality; patient narrative and testimony; and the ethics and politics of transgender psychoanalysis. Her recent publications can be found in journals such as Psychoanalysis, Culture, & Society (2022; 2021), Arizona Quarterly (2020), and Studies in Gender and Sexuality (2019), among others.

In her free time, Carolyn enjoys horses, houseplants, walks, wine, and good conversation. She believes fervently in the universal value of bad TV and the Oxford comma.