Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0011554, Wed, 22 Jun 2005 08:24:24 -0700

Subject
Re: Fw: From Marty Asher
Date
Body


----- Forwarded message from STADLEN@aol.com -----
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 23:46:25 EDT
From: STADLEN@aol.com
Reply-To: STADLEN@aol.com
Subject: Re: Fw: From Marty Asher
To:

In a message dated 22/06/2005 03:34:29 GMT Standard Time, chtodel@cox.net
writes:

> From: DN
> To: 'D. Barton Johnson'
> Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 1:23 AM
> Subject: TR : From Marty Asher
>
> Dear Don,
>
> Thought you and the List would be interested in some of the planned LO
> Anniversary events. The mention of Oprah stems from the enthusiastic
pole-position
> illustrated mention of the original Putnam edition in May 1 Anniversary of
> her magazine.
>
> Anthony Stadlen's fear that the title -- or for that matter just the word
> "sexuality" -- must be altered to escape "quarantine" seems exaggerated.
> However it's quite
>

Dear Don, DN and List,

In a message dated 21/06/2005 16:16:52 GMT Standard Time,
cangrande@bluewin.ch writes:

> Anthony Stadlen's fear, while announcing his seminars, that the title
> LOLITA -- or for that matter the mere word "sexuality" --must be altered to
escape
> "quarantine" seems exaggerated.

Not exaggerated. It actually happened, during this last month. I received
automated emails informing me that just this had happened in respect of
"Lolita",
and separate automated emails saying that just this had happened in respect
of "sexuality", in emails I had sent announcing my seminars.

Many of my non-bowdlerised emails got through, as I have been told. But some
did not, and so I re-sent them bowdlerised.

This has never happened before, although I have probably sent multiple emails
containing "sexuality" before, though not "Lolita".

The emails in question were announcing a series of my monthly Inner Circle
Seminars, which I have been running in London for psychotherapists and others
monthly since 1996. The series for the second half of 2005 contains seven
seminars on literary and philosophical figures with anniversaries during this
period
whose writings are important for the foundations of psychotherapy: Sartre,
Schiller, Coleridge, Freud/Nabokov, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Levinas. I announced
the Freud/Nabokov seminar, on 16 October, as follows:

<< * 16 October: FREUD'S "DORA", NABOKOV'S "LOLITA", AND PSYCHOTHERAPY.
We celebrate the centenary of the publication (October 1905) of Freud's
"Dora" case and the 50th anniversary of the publication (October 1955) of
Nabokov's
novel Lolita. This will be a 12-hour seminar. The seminar will examine
historical findings on Dora and her family from Anthony Stadlen's research over
nearly three decades. Dora and Herr K. were roughly the same ages as Lolita and
Humbert when these older men sexually molested these girl-children. Ernest
Jones, psychoanalyst and Freud's authorised biographer, described Dora as "a
disagreeable creature who preferred revenge to love"; while Lionel Trilling, the
eminent, psychoanalytically informed literary critic and abridger of Jones's
Freud biography, described "Lolita" as a novel about "love". The seminar will
explore what these descriptions imply about the psychoanalytic conception, or
misconception, of "love". >>

It was this (embedded in a lengthy emailed list of descriptions of seminars
for 2005 and 2006) that led to my being informed by automated emails that my
emails were being put in "quarantine" for 30 days and would not reach their
destination. In some cases, my emails got through, as I learned, but I others
they
did not. Some of the polite automated emails informing me of the "quarantine"
explained that the offending word was "Lolita"; others, that it was a word
containing the letters "sex". A telephone number was given for me to ask for
further information. I rang it, and was told politely that the words were
detected, and the "quarantine" imposed, automatically (which was in any case
clear).

If anyone is interested in attending my Freud/Nabokov seminar on 16 October
(or any of the other Inner Circle Seminars), please contact me at
stadlen@aol.com for further information.

Anthony Stadlen

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