Reading/Writing Kleptomania: in Art and Feminism

Kleptomania is an impulse control disorder defined by compulsive bouts of stealing: either worthless items, or things that can be easily paid for. Like hysteria, it was first medicalized as a condition in the nineteenth century, and like hysteria, it was seen as a ‘feminine’ disease.

This ‘reading/writing’ group will meet for 5 sessions to read critical and fictional texts engaged with histories and practices of kleptomania, in art and everyday life. We will consider the feminist potential of the kleptomaniac. We will practice and share ‘kleptomaniac’ writing. We will steal.

The sessions take place on Wednesdays, 2-4.30pm on the following dates: 8 May 22 May 5 June 26 June 10 July The ticket price is for the full course, not individual sessions.

Alice Butler is a writer and academic based in London. She is currently the Freud Museum Writer in Residence, where she is working on kleptomania and feminist art. Her art writing has been published in frieze, Cabinet and Art Monthly, amongst other publications.