Abstract

Taking Derrida's essay “Psychoanalysis Searches the States of Its Soul: the Impossible Beyond of a Sovereign Cruelty” as my point of departure I would like to discuss three exemplary moments in the performative history of psychoanalysis in America: Freud's 1909 “Introductory Lectures to Psychoanalysis” at Clark University, Lacan's visit to the Yale School in 1975, and Derrida's fictionalization of his travel to America in the “Envois” section of The Post Card. Throughout, I would like to keep at the forefront of our minds the question of cruelty and the unique and unusual place that cruelty plays in both American culture and the history of psychoanalysis in America