[Air-l] Call for Papers: Psychoanalysis and Democracy

[PsycheCulture at cs.com]

There is still time to present a paper or panel at the exciting conference of 
the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society (APCS) coming 
up at COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City on October 15-17, 2004.

Conference Theme: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND DEMOCRACY.

Please send your proposal now (as an abstract of not more than 300 words) to: 
psychodemocracy at earthlink.net


Call for Papers

The Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society (APCS) is 
holding its annual conference at the Union Theological Seminary of Columbia 
University. The theme of this year's conference is: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND DEMOCRACY.

The conference will take place on October 15-17, 2004, just prior to the 
American presidential election. The aim of the conference is to explore how 
psychoanalysis might help to address some of the major issues facing democratic 
institutions and ideals, both in the United States and at a more broadly global 
level.

Psychoanalytic theory, since its inception in the late nineteenth century, 
has aspired to possess a broadly social and cultural dimension, and to maintain 
a theoretical framework that would allow it to address not only our personal 
and subjective life, but also our broader social institutions, from the family 
and other intimate human relations, to larger institutions such as the nation, 
the army and the church. Every human social link, from the parent-child bond 
to the formation of larger national ideals and cultural practices, entails a 
complex set of identifications and ideals, which shape subjective experience in 
diverse and sometimes conflicting ways.

Recent debates about democracy, and current events on a global scale, call 
for a re-examination of the basic concepts that lie at the intersection between 
psychoanalysis and democracy today, from notions of citizenship, human rights, 
and justice, to practices of punishment, freedom, equal representation, and 
other political "technologies of the self." How might psychoanalysis help to 
address the social questions that challenge or reconfigure democratic culture 
today? What does psychoanalysis have to say about citizenship and subjectivity 
in the world today?

Possible Topics May Include:

the subject of democracy 

psychoanalysis and the politics of identity 

democracy and sexuality 

historical transmissions of trauma 

witnessing in psychoanalysis and politics 

abject citizens: exiles, immigrants, prisoners, the disenfranchised 

queer democracy 

institutions of mourning in politics and psychoanalysis 

citizenship and subjectivity 

punishment, reparation, and historical memory, freedom of speech 

biotechnology and the subject 

institutions of traumatic memory: the Truth Commission, the Supreme Court, 
The Hague, the war memorial 

perversions of democracy 

psychoanalysis and human rights 

formations of guilt in politics and in psychoanalysis 

the nation/state as case study: Haiti, Chile, Argentina, Bosnia, Texas, 
California, South Africa 

Panel proposals are especially welcome. Send panel proposals, and individual 
paper proposals, including: (1) title, (2) abstracts (not to exceed 300 
words), and (3) the name and affiliation of each speaker to: Professor Charles 
Shepherdson, Department of English, State University of New York, Albany NY 12222. 
psychodemocracy at earthlink.net

Deadline: September 6, 2004.