“Dreaming of ‘Black Mummy’: Race, Gender, Decolonization, and D. W. Winnicott” with Dr. Carolyn Laubender

In this talk, Dr. Laubender turns to the work of midcentury British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott in order to explore the intersectional gendered and racial dimensions implicit in his theory of "the good enough mother.” Laubender argues that, although much feminist, queer, and political theoretical interest has accrued to Winnicott’s psychoanalytic theorizing, a deeper view is gained by turning to his clinical practice, which was operating at the height of British decolonization and the Windrush immigration boom. By toggling between the clinic and the “wider social sphere,” Laubender offers a reading of the psychoanalytic clinic as a vital political laboratory for the reimagining of race, gender, family, and empire.

Bio: Carolyn Laubender is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies and the founding Co-Director of the MA in Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Essex. Her first book, The Political Clinic: Psychoanalysis and Social Change in the 20th Century (published in 2024 with Columbia University Press) wsa the 2025 winner of the Book Prize of the American Psychoanalytic Association.She is currently working on a commissioned new edition of Oxford UP's Very Short Introduction to Freud, expected in 2027, and a forthcoming special issue of Psychoanalysis & Historyentitled Trans-Analytics: Psychoanalysis, Gender, and History. She also serves as the Book Reviews Editor for Psychoanalysis & History.

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Co-sponsored by the Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Department of English, Theater and Performance Studies, Program in Modern Thought and Literature, The Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford Humanities Center, Decolonizing Gender Reading Group, and the Working Group on Psychoanalysis & the Arts.