CFP: Film – Psychoanalysis – Social Theory

Philosophy and Society

Call for Papers

No. 3/2013 (Vol. XXIV)

Deadline 15.09.2013

Film–Psychoanalysis–Social Theory

There has always been some overlap between film and psychoanalysis: they have emerged more or less simultaneously, and have never ceased to mutually reflect on one another - film served as adequate field for the application of psychoanalytic results, but also many film directors were conscious of the influence of psychoanalysis. That contextual similarity concerning origin implies that film and psychoanalysis share a similar historical and social genesis which should be considered. Also, autonomisation of Film Studies as an independent academic discipline occurred in parallel with the “Renaissance” of psychoanalysis during the 60s and 70s. It was clear from the start that the relationship was not coincidental, and that there was crucial common ground, both formally and concerning content. On the one hand, psychoanalysis depicted the logic of desire in innovative ways, but at the same time the very form of the film was interpreted as a space of fantasy. However, is the psychoanalytic interpretation of collective fantasy also possible? Could film be resistance to such fantasies or just their reproduction? Does film represent transgression of desire, or does it just repeat the ideologies of consumption and social clichés? It should be noted that in the history of psychoanalytic interpretations of film, the focus was more directed on the audience and the kind of discourse of film as a medium (rather than director and character), and this tendency has endorsed new opportunities for social thematization of film. The psychoanalytic perspective also enables drawing attention to the contingent character of the social subject, pointing out the role of the ideal I, identification, imaginary unity, i.e. objects of desire. A psychoanalytic approach to film is often at work - implicitly or explicitly -  in feminist or postcolonial studies, and these interpretive strategies enabled new possibilities in terms of politicization of a psychoanalytic approach to film, taking into account the relations of dominance.