Shakespeare & Freud in The Czech Republic / Commemorating Freud’s 170th Anniversary in P

Name: Shakespeare & Freud in The Czech Republic / Commemorating Freud’s 170th Anniversary in P
Start: 2026-05-07T09:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-05-13T07:00:00+02:00
Location: Příbor

Schedule

Thu, 07 May, 2026 at 09:00 am to Wed, 13 May, 2026 at 07:00 am

UTC+02:00

Location

Příbor | Frydek-mistek, MO

Shakespeare & Freud in The Czech Republic
Commemorating Freud’s 170th Anniversary in Příbor, Czech Republic
May 7-13 2026
25 Continuing Education Credits
An Invitation to the Source
Our journey begins in Prague, a city poised at the cultural and intellectual crossroads of Europe—where history, myth, and modern thought converge. From here, we embark on both an intellectual inquiry and a physical pilgrimage, tracing the psychic terrain that gave rise to psychoanalysis itself.
This immersive experience follows the origins of the “talking cure,” guiding participants through the landscapes, texts, and memories that shaped Sigmund Freud’s earliest thinking. Timed to coincide with the 170th anniversary of Freud’s birth, the journey grants rare access to historic sites, private archives, and local commemorations unavailable to the public.
At the heart of the seminar is a rare interdisciplinary pairing:
A renowned Shakespeare scholar and a distinguished Freudian scholar lead an exploration of Freud’s 1899 paper “Screen Memories” alongside Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, set in the same land where Freud was born mirroring the losses of the Freud family..
Together, we uncover how psychoanalysis and drama converge in a single, symbolic land—Bohemia—the mythic setting of Shakespeare’s play and the literal birthplace of Sigmund Freud.
Prague → Příbor: Entering the Landscape of Memory
We gather in Prague for a welcome breakfast and introductions before traveling together into Moravia, to the town of Příbor, Freud’s birthplace.
Though Freud left Příbor at the age of three, its cultural climate and economic realities profoundly shaped his early psyche. Beneath the idyllic screen memories of childhood lies a history of financial collapse, displacement, and the abrupt rupture of a middle-class life.
This setting becomes our living seminar room.
Family Mythologies & Economic Shadows
Příbor: The Landscape of Memory
Our discussions trace the parallels between Freud’s early experiences in Moravia and the central themes of The Winter’s Tale: exile, loss, rupture, and the long passage of time required for restoration.
Freud’s remembered “yellow flowers” are examined not as nostalgia, but as symbolic coverings for economic upheaval and social change in the 1850s—revealing how memory reshapes trauma into something survivable.
Screen Memories
Led by Freudian scholar Tom DeRose, we engage deeply with Freud’s 1899 paper “Screen Memories,” examining how personal memory disguises unbearable truth.
Seminar Focus
How memory functions as psychic protection
The hidden narrative of bankruptcy and displacement
Childhood recollection as symbolic architecture rather than historical fact
The Link
We connect Freud’s early memories to Shakespeare’s exploration of “the wide gap of time” in The Winter’s Tale, revealing how loss becomes legible only through distance, narrative, and return.
Exclusive Program features
The McAdam Freud House: Exclusive sessions held in the home and gallery of the late Jane McAdam Freud, exploring her work on "the return" and ancestral identity.
Birthplace Sessions: A private tour and seminar session inside the room where Sigmund Freud was born in 1856.
Theatrical Workshops: Actor and scholar Paul O’Mahoney leads immersive explorations of The Winter’s Tale, focusing on the "miraculous return" of the lost mother and the healing of old family wounds.
Social Dreaming: Morning sessions to share and analyze "communal dreams" in the very environment where the study of dreams was first rooted.
Guided Reflective Walks: Walking through the meadows and hills of Příbor that Freud recalled in his later years as his "earliest garden."
The Winter’s Tale
With Shakespeare expert Paul O’Mahony, we follow a play defined by jealousy, exile, and the arduous work of repair. Central to our study is the image of the statue brought to life—a metaphor for recovering lost family histories and healing long-buried wounds.
The Synchronicity
Shakespeare set his tale of reconciliation in Bohemia. We study it in the very land where Freud’s own story began.
The Legacy of Jane McAdam Freud
A deeply personal highlight of the seminar is private access to the house and gallery of the late Jane McAdam Freud, a dear friend of the host and a profound artist in her own right.
Jane’s work bridges the clinical past and the living present. When Příbor asked for a Freud to return “home,” Jane answered—using sculpture and form to reclaim both her Czech heritage and her lineage as Freud’s great-granddaughter.
Private Experiences
Exclusive tour of the McAdam Freud House
Guided exploration of current gallery installations
Dialogue on lineage, memory, and artistic inheritance
We examine how Jane’s work speaks to generational legacy—how the living can find something vital within what history has left behind.
Exile, Identity and the Creative Act
Both Freud’s family and Shakespeare’s characters suffer the trauma of displacement. We explore how exile shapes identity—and how art, analysis, and language become acts of reclamation.
Jane McAdam Freud’s work offers a powerful contemporary response: art as a means of restoring what history fractured.
The Talking Cure & The Dramatic Monologue
Participants experience the Shakespearean soliloquy alongside the psychoanalytic practice of free association, discovering how both seek to give voice to the unconscious. Speech becomes transformation.
As we commemorate 170 years of Freud, we look at how the "dying" of the family's old life in the Czech Republic led to the "newborn" science of the mind. This seminar is a celebration of that cycle: how exile leads to discovery, and how the past, when revisited, can bring about a profound sense of restoration. By walking the soil where Freud first dreamed, and speaking the words Shakespeare set in this land, we open a singular path toward intellectual depth and personal restoration.
Prague & Příbor, Czech Republic | May 2026
A 170th Anniversary Commemorative Expedition