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In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud writes, “This replacement of the power of the individual by the power of the community constitutes the decisive step of civilization.” Forty years later, in Black Skin White Masks, Franz Fanon writes, “Every time a man has contributed to the victory of the dignity of the spirit, every time a man has said no to an attempt to subjugate his fellows, I have felt solidarity with his act.” Now, more than ever, Freud’s concept of the power of the community, and Fanon’s call for solidarity in addressing the virulent and ongoing violence that threatens us and our imperiled planet, are necessary. In this call for participation, we are inviting you to engage – or to reengage—with Freud and Fanon’s radical, revolutionary, and beautiful struggle.
In this conference, we center material and social reality. We question the split between psychic and material reality, and recognize that the social is always with us, in us, and around us, shaping our theories, our practices, our institutions and our minds. We recognize that our libidinal energies and anxieties materialize in the destruction of our relationships, our environment, and ourselves – as well as form the wellspring for our imagination and creativity. Destruction is not inherently bad; nature and change are made of destruction.
So, let’s talk about greed, envy, fear, and destructiveness. Let’s talk about how psychoanalysis has been destructive, to what and to whom. Let’s talk about desire, resistance, liberation, and the will to live. Let’s talk about how psychoanalysis can create psychic and material realities that uphold the dignity of the spirit. We invite participants to use the best insights of psychoanalysis to help us resist the destructiveness we inflict on each other relationally and structurally, to help us destroy the orders that subjugate us, and to help us imagine and create what is not yet known.
We invite engagements that address how our existing practices can be expanded from the therapeutic dyad to benefit the community and the physical environment; how our existing theories can be re-invigorated by domains that include abolitionist movements, critical race studies, decolonial theories, disability studies, environmental studies, feminisms, Indigenous philosophy and praxis, performance studies, social philosophies, and queer theories; and how our institutions, including Division 39, might be reimagined as communities that move us forward toward creating social and psychic realities of greater livability.
Please join us in our beautiful struggle. |
