Freud’s ‘Dora’ (1905) – Nabokov’s Lolita (1955). Inner Circle Seminar 92 (16 October 2005)



Ida (‘Dora’) and Otto Bauer

Poster for Stanley Kubrick’s
1962 film Lolita

Freud’s ‘Dora’ (1905)

Nabokov’s Lolita (1955)



Anthony Stadlen
conducts

(12-hour) Inner Circle Seminar No. 92


Sunday 16 October 2005
10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

This 12-hour seminar celebrates the 100th anniversary of the publication (October–November 1905) of Sigmund Freud’s case study ‘Dora’ and the 50th anniversary of the publication (15 September 1955) of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita. We compare and contrast these seminal works. Herr K. and Dora were almost the same ages as Humbert Humbert and Lolita when these older men sexually molested these girl-children. Ernest Jones, psychoanalyst and biographer of Freud, described Dora as ‘a disagreeable creature who preferred revenge to love’. Lionel Trilling, psychoanalytically informed literary critic and abridger of Jones’s biography, described Lolita as a novel about love. We explore what these descriptions imply about the psychoanalytic conception, or misconception, of ‘love’. Anthony Stadlen presents findings from his research over three decades on the history of Dora’s family. Discussion continues over dinner in an excellent, inexpensive Egyptian restaurant and resumes back in the seminar room with wine and amaretti on the house.

Venue: Room F (Acland), Regent’s College, Inner Circle, London NW1 4NS
Subscription: Students £72, others £90, in advance; some bursaries
Apply to: Anthony Stadlen, ‘Oakleigh’, 2A Alexandra Avenue, London N22 7XE
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 8888 6857 E-mail: stadlen@aol.com