Psychoanalysis and Politics in The Portal

Psychoanalysis and Politics is a course co-led by writer and film-maker Helen Rollins and professor of digital media culture Alfie Bown, both of Everyday Analysis. ​ The course aims to introduce the basic relationship between psychoanalysis and politics. ​ Throughout the course you will be introduced the core of psychoanalysis, the nature of clinical structures, and their relationship to both the general notion of politics, as well as specific political tensions. ​ This foundation will be used to explore the difference between activism and politics, as well as the effects of platform capitalism on our psychology, and the psychology of left-right signifiers of political identity in capitalism. ​ ​

Signing up to this course gives you access to four live lectures this November 2025, as well as indefinite access to the recordings afterwards.

Classes and dates

Seminar Guides

Helen Rollins is a writer and filmmaker from Northern Ireland, currently based between London and Belfast. Her most recent project is the miniseries Better Angels: The Gospel According to Tammy Faye. She developed the project and was co-writer and executive producer on it, too. The series was produced by Vice Studios, in association with Rocket Entertainment and The Magician’s Niece. It was executive produced by David Furnish and Elton John. The series premiered at Sundance in 2024.

Helen lectures and writes across topics related to film and psychoanalysis. She has been a co-host on two philosophy podcasts and has a book on film theory (Psychocinema) with Polity.

Alfie Bown is Senior Lecturer in Digital Media Culture and Technology in the Department of Digital Humanities. His research focuses on psychoanalysis, digital media and popular culture.

His books include Dream Lovers (Pluto, 2022), an investigation into dating apps, sexbots and virtual relationships, Post-Comedy (Polity, 2024), Post-Memes (Punctum, 2019) and The Playstation Dreamworld (Polity, 2017), a psychoanalytic study of video games which is available in Spanish, Portuguese, Serbian, Slovak and many other languages. Currently, he is working on the relationship between psychoanalysis and cybernetics.

He is also editor of Everyday Analysis, a pamphlet house and monthly talk series and is a writer/producer for The Magician's Niece.

Recommended Readings

Philosophy Portal

The Portal is an online philosophy community at Philosophy Portal building a future-oriented learning network. Members get access to four live philosophical events every month and our entire recorded history (videos from January 2024 to the present), which includes contributions from core contributors to the underground theory scene and liminal web communities.
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​The Portal grew out of the first two years of course work at Philosophy Portal focused on great works in continental philosophy (e.g. Hegel, Nietzsche) and psychoanalytic theory (e.g. Freud, Lacan). Learning the foundations of philosophy is essential for thinking, but so is creating spaces where philosophy can come to life, in both community context (cultivating shared space and context), and at the intersection of engaging a real network (learning to interact with difference/otherness).
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​The Portal is the result of this double commitment: community building and network engagement. As a result, it offers a unique and priceless educational opportunity, to both cultivate the capacity to think in community, as well as struggle in the differences between communities to generate novel connections.
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​Members of The Portal are welcome to every live event we host, but are not expected to attend any live sessions (we are flexible to your schedule + some members prefer to just access the recordings).
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​To learn more, or get involved, check the links below: