It's safe to say that this is the term that will probably shape what future I have at University of Essex. If I can get ahead on those essays, get them in and done with early, and demonstrate to these professors that, irrespective of the fact a full-fledged career in academics probably isn't in the cards for me I can still nonetheless do things they need me to do and do them well, then I probably will be in good shape. If you forced me to choose today what the hell I'm going to do long-term I would probably stick out all four years and get the PhD. There's not many programs where I can walk away at 27 years old and say I have my doctorate. And if I stop after the masters I may never come back. Plus, I am fairly sure this program works in my favor in two ways: 1) it is sufficient in terms of a platform for what I want to write about, and 2) it's probably one of the few schools that will accept my eclectic career path, even if they might not like all my ideas. I can't imagine some guy who just wants to teach and write novels is going to sell very well in a lot of other schools and departments. Universities want sycophants, the more subservient the better. That isn't me, but I think that's okay at Essex; so long as I work hard and do duties that come along I won't get shit for not completely giving into the politics. I think it will be crucial for me to be honest with these people about what I want for my future; that I don't intend to go completely into Jungian academics as they know it. Whether working with people or social work is in my future (I think it is eventually) I cannot say. For now I think teaching will be the most practical thing to do once I'm done, along with whatever I can get published. That's really where I'm at.
The non-fiction writing will be the most important in terms of the immediate future. Monday I met with Dr. Charles Jarrett, a professor of philosophy at Rutgers-Camden who I had for a seminar in Philosophy of Mind. He's an authority on Spinoza, the philosopher whose work I wish to link to Jung's. Was a very productive meeting; my intuitions that they are saying essentially the same thing but in radically different language were affirmed and refined. I definitely have enough to build a good paper. As far as fiction goes my outline and ideas for the current project, one that has been brewing for more than a year now, are as strong as ever. It is almost ready for realization. I'm not the type of person to write blindly. I like to have a structure I feel confident in and am emotionally invested in. When it gets to the point where I can go "oh man I'd love to read that," I know it's ready to be written. I'm very close to that. My hope is to start actual production once I'm back at Essex. I'm excited about it; it takes up a lot of my attention nowadays. This will have to be carefully balanced once the term starts.
Finally, I saw A Dangerous Method tonight. This movie is an adaptation of a play that focused on the relationship between Jung and Freud, as well as an affair Jung had with a patient named Sabina Spielrein, who went on to become a student of Freud (much to Jung's chagrin). I know a lot of Jungians dismissed this as unbecoming trash, but honestly I thought it was pretty good in terms of how it treated all the principle characters. Was it overly dramatic at times? Yes. Were certain scenes composites or embellished? Sure but that has to happen in a fictional retelling of something historical; otherwise you end up with a lot of boring scenes. Most of the dialogue certainly came from something Jung, Freud, or Spielrein actually wrote elsewhere, and certain scenes (such as the bookcase 'paranormal' moment between Jung and Freud) were conveyed as they were actually supposed to have happened. So it was very exciting for someone studying all the history of these people to see it on screen. Now, the movie in of itself? Mediocre. You could tell they edited a lot out, and that made for a pretty uneven flick. One minute Jung and Sabina are arguing, next they're having sex and in the very next scene they're not talking again. There wasn't a lot of continuity, and I could see someone who didn't know the history in advance totally getting lost. Still, a decent film. Only worth seeing if you care about the history.
Here's five things I liked from the film:
1. Fassbender played a great CG Jung. Exactly the write balance of warmth and wisdom contrasted with some naivete and the ambivalence that seemed to define him during his years with Freud. Later on in his life Jung becomes more assertive and ambitious (to some dubious extents at times), but at this point he was straddling the reductionist world of Freud with his paranormal interests. Somewhere inside of him is the wise old man that so many associate with Jung, but it's locked away for now, only occasionally appearing, and Fassbender's portrayal of Jung captures that concealment. Overall I think he was spot-on for a young... Jung.
2. Furthmore, while Jung is sympathetic in the film he certainly is kind of an asshole; he is eager to surrender to his feelings for Sabina (at behest of the hilarious Otto Gross, who was depicted like the clown I thought he was) and tries several times to hide or justify it. Similarly his wife Emma is shown to have that steely tolerance for Jung's transactions that seemed to keep the marriage together for decades. And yes, the fact that Sabina planted many of the ideas in Jung's head that would become central to analytical psychology is revealed here.
3. Viggo Mortensen nailed Sigmund Freud. The passive-agressive smugness laden in all his letters to Jung is shown brilliantly here, as is the cold spite he shows towards his prodigal son when their relationship begins to deteriorate. Freud is manipulative, shrewd but also a bit lonely. His bitterness with the world, his fixation on sex and his disdain for all that could be a threat to his legacy are other key qualities Mortensen captures perfectly. As an aside, I think that film also correctly implies that it was Jung's withheld disappointment with Freud that really led to the break.
4. There are a lot of composite scenes in this movie that take lines that were from different points in time or various correspondences and make a single scene out of them. As I said above I have no problem with this, but one of the great moments in the film is entirely faithful to history, and that is the dissolution of Jung and Freud's friendship via harsh letters to one another. There is a montage of them reading and reacting to their angry responses, until Jung ends with that famous line: "The rest is silence." The film does this extremely well because it demonstrates that not only was this break painful for Jung, but for Freud as well.
5. The final scene between Jung and Sabina is, as far as I know, actually entirely fiction (can some Jungian verify that for me)? From what I know Jung and Sabina never had any final reconciliation; Sabina's (spiteful?) alliance with Freud basically ended any contact with Jung (I believe that, more than anything else, precipitated Jung's breakdown). Still, in terms of art I liked this final scene. It had so many iconic Jung moments, such as the telling of his ominous dream of Europe drowning in fire and blood, or when he utters that classic quote: "Only the wounded physician can heal." But most of all, when Jung tells Sabina that his relationship with her let him discover who he really was, I think that's a pretty fair statement for the movie to assert. Jung's love with Sabina Spielrein planted the seeds for analytical psychology, which was most certainly a labor of Jung's own psyche. So yes this might be the most fabricated scene in the film, but I still appreciated it.
That's it for tonight.
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