Psychoanalysis, born in the 19th century and evolving into its contemporary forms in the present, is an ambitious theoretic and therapeutic project aimed at understanding and healing the human psyche. Sigmund Freud, its founding father, figures as one of the prominent, innovative and revolutionary thinkers of Western thought. This course will examine the cultural and philosophic context of Freud's ideas and introduce basic psychoanalytic concepts that he created and developed: the life and death drives – Eros and Thanatos– the Ego, Id and the Superego, polymorphous sexuality, conflict and symptom. We will discuss Freud's complex relations with science, rationality and the issue of therapist-patient relations, and present his portrayal of the subject's developmental course, his pains and pleasures. Through the reading of selected texts, we will follow the transition between Freud's early optimism and the pessimism of his later thought. We will discuss Freud's legacy and image in terms of their inherent complexities: the scientific vs. the humanistic, the modern vs. postmodern deconstruction and the emancipatory vs. the normative and traditional.