Resistance: Psychoanalysis and Critical Theories

Call for Papers and Abstracts 

Resistance : Psychoanalysis and Critical Theories

Apr. 20th - 21st, 2018 

Villanova University, Villanova, PA

Keynote Speakers:

Dr. Amy Allen (Penn State)

Dr. Jamieson Webster (Eugene Lang College of the New School, psychoanalyst in New York)  

Sigmund Freud started to explore the social and political potential of his psychoanalytical theory in Totem and Taboo (1913), Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921), and Civilization and Its Discontents (1930). The Early Frankfurt school further took up this political valence and combined historical materialism with analyses of the psychodynamic of familial, romantic, and erotic relations under centuries-long patriarchal conditioning. For some time, Freudo-Marxism was the implicit method of critical or radical political theorists. In more recent years, however, psychoanalysis has met with criticism for presupposing a variety of patriarchal and colonial norms and prejudices and for emphasizing individual, psychic interiority. This conference brings psychoanalysis and the variety of possible critical theories together in order to critically examine these presuppositions in psychoanalytic theories, as well as to call for a critical engagement with the current politics and society using psychoanalytic theories. We invite papers that engage with psychoanalysis critically and/or engage with the critical potentials in psychoanalytic theories.  

We welcome papers that explore the political potential of psychoanalysis, for good or ill, in connection with a variety of topics. We welcome graduate students and faculty from all disciplines to submit papers of approximately 3000 words (including co-authored work) or abstracts (approx. 500 words), to be considered for our conference. Authors submitting promising abstracts will be asked to submit a more complete paper with a suggested date.  

Topics may include but are not limited to: · Psychoanalysis and queer theory · Trans studies and psychoanalysis · Frankfurt school and psychoanalysis · Psychoanalysis and contemporary critical theory · Critical race theory · Feminism and psychoanalysis · Decolonial or postcolonial theory · Political affect and psychoanalysis · Metapsychology and method  

Please send any inquiries and submissions, prepared for blind review, by January 20, 2018 to [email protected]