Graduate Student, Sociology & Equity Studies in Education
Doctoral Candidate
Thesis Title: Ruins as Scenes of Exposure: On the Enigma of Looking Back between Mourning and Melancholia
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Roger I. Simon
Bob Gibbs John Zilcosky |
About
Ricky Varghese is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He is also working on his dissertation in association with the Centre for Comparative Literature, the Department of Philosophy and the Department of German.
His work attempts to bring together the fields of literary theory and criticism, history of psychoanalysis, and the Jewish philosophy of history. He is currently completing a dissertation entitled 'Ruins as Scenes of Exposure: On the Enigma of Looking Back between Mourning and Melancholia'. Using the work of Freud on mourning, melancholia, and repetition, and Benjamin's philosophy of history, he attempts to explain the relationship between memory, history, and the writing of fiction using the trope of the "ruin" as a metaphor for the psychic landscape of the unconscious. Key texts under consideration and analysis in his research include Freud's 'Moses and Monotheism', Anne Michaels's 'Fugitive Pieces', Denis Villeneuve's 'Incendies', Terrence Malick's 'The Tree of Life', and the photographs from the exhibition series 'Library of Dust' by David Maisel.
His other research interests include feminist and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, contemporary film theory, art criticism, history of photography, trauma studies, and historic memory. He is preparing to train as a psychoanalyst after his dissertation is complete.
Contact Information
| Telephone: |
(416) 508 2523 |
