Many Faces of the Animus

Carl Jung’s concepts of the anima and animus have been critiqued in Post Jungian discourse for their essentialist biases and binary assumptions. In this lecture, the animus is envisioned as a fluid and dynamic phenomenon of the unconscious psyche, with active links in culture. The animus has many faces, destructive and benign, opposing and synthesizing, involving a wide spectrum of psyche and culture. The notion of the animus is presented here through diverse images of feminine emancipation, revealing the transformative potential of the archetype. This lecture will present the animus and its individuating telos through narratives and images, expanding upon Jung’s original views, and locating the archetype in contemporary psychological worlds.

Animus, Psyche and Culture : Sulagna Sengupta's recent book

Below are full book reviews by Andrew Samuels and Susan Rowland

Professor Andrew Samuels, Editor of Routledge Psychonalysis and Jungian Analysis; author of The Political Psyche

“Simply in a league of its own! Building on her ground-breaking Jung in India, Sengupta makes a stellar contribution to the cultural revision – and hence renaissance – of Jungian theory and practice. It is one of the most important de-colonisations in the entire field of depth psychology and psy- choanalysis. Everyone will benefit, in the West too. Of particular importance is the interweave of mythology and contemporary crises in India. After this work, we cannot look at contra-sexuality, and especially at the animus, in an unchanged way.”

Dr Susan Rowland, renowned Jungian scholar and author of more than twelves books on Jungian and related studies

“Through her incisive and compassionate twenty-first century feminist lens, Sulagna Sengupta’s Animus, Psyche and Culture, takes C. G. Jung’s con- troversial masculine other and makes it into the most searching and revel- atory lens on culture and gender in India. This is Transdisciplinary Jungian research at its most creative and empowering. Animus, Psyche and Culture blends depth psychology, Jung, post-Jungian scholarship, myth, film, religion and history for astonishing insights that put the animus forefront in thinking about culture and psyche. The book provides a vivid and compelling argu- ment evaluating the tangle of gender, power, vision and individuation.”

Susan Rowland (PhD) is core faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute and author of Jung: A Feminist Revision (2002), and with Joel Weishaus, Jungian Arts-Based Research and the Nuclear Enchantment of New Mexico (2021)

Sulagna Sengupta is a Jungian scholar and cultural historian, author of ‘Jung in India’ (2013) and ‘Animus, Psyche and Culture: A Jungian Revision’ (2023). Her first book was based on original archival research on Jung’s history with India and his journey to India in 1937-38. Sulagna is currently working on a Jungian interpretation of the Indian epic, The Ramayana, in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex, UK. She is an editorial committee member of IJJS (International Journal of Jungian Studies), and publishes and lectures widely in Jungian forums. Her website is http://jung-india.org