EVENTS

Seminar:

Samo Tomšic
Freudian Speculations

Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea do Chiado (MNAC)
6–8 May 2026, 11h–13h, 14h–16h

E-Flyer (eng)

Francisco de Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, 1819–1823

“In psychoanalysis nothing is true but the exaggerations.” In this memorable aphorism, Adorno cuts to the core of the Freudian invention. But what are these exaggerations? On closer inspection, one might gain the impression that psychoanalysis consists of little else. Not only did Freud advance an array of controversial and at times outrageous theoretical claims; his method itself appears marked by a form of exaggeration, most evident in its practice of interpretation. But what if the most decisive exaggeration lies in the very experience of speech? Psychoanalysis speculates — but so does the unconscious.

The seminar will return to the foundations of psychoanalysis in order to examine its speculative excesses: from Freud’s ill-fated attempts to combine analytic material with ethnological narratives, through his efforts to ground the theory of drives in biology, to the role of constructions in analysis, which raise the question of the material efficacy of fictions. Finally, on this terrain of myths, fictions, and corporeality, psychoanalysis intersects with philosophy, politics, and aesthetics. We will explore the critical potential of these intersections through sustained engagement with the conditions of the present.

Samo Tomšič is Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at the Dresden University of Fine Arts. His research focuses on modern and contemporary European philosophy, critical theory, structuralism and poststructuralism, the history and theory of psychoanalysis, and aesthetics. He has held visiting professorships at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg and the University of Fine Arts Hamburg, as well as research positions at Humboldt University Berlin and the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is currently completing a monograph titled The Drive of Destruction: Psychoanalysis at the Limits of the Social. His previous publications include The Capitalist Unconscious: Marx and Lacan (Verso, 2015) and The Labour of Enjoyment: Toward a Critique of Libidinal Economy (August Verlag, 2019).

Registration is free but limited to the number of seats available. Please send an email with a short CV to admin@maumaus.org by 29.04.2026. Confirmation of registration will be sent by email. The seminar will be in English.