Teresa Brennan (January 5, 1952February 3, 2003) was an
Australian feminist
Australia has a long-standing association with the protection and creation of women's rights. Australia was the second country in the world to give women the right to vote (after New Zealand in 1893) and the first to give women the right to be ...
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
and
psychoanalytic theorist best known for her posthumous book, ''The Transmission of Affect'' (2004). Before her death, Brennan was Schmidt Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at
Florida Atlantic University, where she founded a PhD program for Public Intellectuals.
Education and career
Brennan graduated with a BA from the
University of Sydney and an MA in political theory from the
University of Melbourne. Before her PhD at
King's College, Cambridge, Brennan trained as a psychoanalyst at the
Tavistock Clinic in London. She taught at
The New School,
Brandeis University, and
Harvard University, and finally as Schmidt Distinguished Professor of Humanities at
Florida Atlantic University.
While at Florida Atlantic University from 1998 to 2002, Brennan designed a PhD for Public Intellectuals, intended for training not only scholars but curators and archivists, organizers, and environmentalists.
Publications
Brennan's first two books, ''Interpretations of the Flesh: Freud and Femininity'' and ''History After Lacan,'' are works of psychoanalytic social theory, while ''Exhausting Modernity: Grounds for a New Economy'' and ''Globalization and Its Terrors'' draw on Marxist and ecofeminist theories to consider large-scale energetic draining. Her posthumous ''The Transmission of Affect'' engages physiological and psychosocial research that challenges the causal framework of
sociobiology, with examples such as
stress,
psychological projection, the
introjection of
aggression
Aggression is overt or covert, often harmful, social interaction with the intention of inflicting damage or other harm upon another individual; although it can be channeled into creative and practical outlets for some. It may occur either reacti ...
, and the energizing and draining of social interactions.
In addition to these five books, Brennan edited two volumes: ''Between Feminism and Psychoanalysis'' and, with co-editor
Martin Jay, ''Vision in Context: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Sight.'' She was General Editor with
Susan James of the ''Oxford Readings in Feminism'' series, an extension of ''Oxford Readings in Philosophy'', and also General Editor for the Routledge series ''Opening Out: Feminism for Today.''
Brennan's colleagues contributed to a posthumous volume on her work ''Living Attention: On Teresa Brennan''. Her papers are housed in the
John Hay Library at
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, part of the
Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women's Feminist Theory Archive. In 2017, the philoSOPHIA annual conference honored Brennan at
Florida Atlantic University, with a keynote by
Sara Ahmed.
Death
She died of injuries from a
hit and run car crash in 2003.
, an Australian judge, appealed a speeding ticket in 2006 by claiming that he lent his car to her. The discrepancy eventually led to his conviction and imprisonment.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brennan, Teresa
1952 births
2003 deaths
Australian feminist writers
Australian women philosophers
Florida Atlantic University faculty
University of Sydney alumni
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
20th-century Australian philosophers
Road incident deaths in Florida
20th-century Australian women