Knowledge is power and we want to know everything. Or at least, that's what dominant cultural narratives would have us believe. Yet from medical diagnoses to childhood trauma, we often choose ignorance for ourselves and are happier and healthier for it. Then again, many of the choices about what we know and don't know are made for us, by forces that are invisible to us. The relationship between power, health, ignorance and fantasy is anything but straightforward.

What do we really want to know about ourselves and is there such a thing as too much self-knowledge? What are the social and political forces that go in to shaping the forms of knowledge that are available to us? How do changes in culture affect our understanding of subjecthood? And when is it a good idea to shove one's head under the sand and deny reality?

Sociologist, philosopher and legal theorist, Renata Salecl, guides us through the murky depths of ignorance, and our underacknowledged passion for it.

By the end of the course, you will have learned:

• How psychoanalysts discover what their patients really want
• How power and ignorance are linked
• Medieval advice on how to be wise about what you don't know
• Why love can so quickly turn into hate
• How big data is changing our notion of subjectivity
• When and why denial can sometimes be the best course of action

As part of the course there are in-video quiz questions to consolidate your learning.

IAI Academy courses are designed to be challenging but accessible to the interested student. No specialist knowledge is required.