CFP: Virtual International Interdisciplinary Conference on "MEMORY, FORGETTING AND CREATING" 18-19 January 2024

 

ABOUT CONFERENCE: 

In our increasingly fast-paced societies, where information is abundant and its reception is superficial, human memory appears to be an endangered phenomenon. This is why we would like to take a closer look at the complex processes of memory. These include forgetting, neglecting, negation, and detachment, along with creating, recollecting, remembering, regaining memories, and reconstructing one’s relationship with the past. We are deeply interested in examples and consequences of altered memories: invention, fabrication, deception, indoctrination or propaganda. We invite reflection on mutual relations between memory and imagination, fantasising and manipulating, forgetting and creating.

We would like all these problems to be contextualised as broadly as possible, with reference to historical, social, religious, cultural, psychological, artistic and other factors. Different forms of presentations are encouraged, including case studies, theoretical investigations, problem-oriented arguments, and comparative analyses.

The conference is intended as an interdisciplinary event. Hence, we invite researchers representing various academic disciplines: anthropology, history, sociology, philosophy, psychology, psychoanalysis, neurophysiology, literary studies, theatre studies, film studies, memory studies, consciousness studies, dream studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, animal studies, medical sciences, psychiatry, social policy, cognitive sciences and others.

We will be happy to hear from both experienced scholars and young academics at the start of their careers, as well as doctoral and graduate students. We also invite all persons interested in participating in the conference as listeners, without giving a presentation. We hope that due to its interdisciplinary nature, the conference will bring many interesting observations on and discussions about the role of memory in the past and in the present-day world.

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Our repertoire of suggested topics includes but is not restricted to:

1. Lost Memory:

- forgotten history

- forgotten nations

- forgotten heroes

- forgotten legacy

- forgotten times

- forgotten revolutions

- forgotten identity

- forgotten authors

- forgotten texts

- forgotten languages

2. Memory Loss:

- amnesia

- Alzheimer’s disease

- dementia

- sclerosis

- selective memory

- repression

- psychopathology of everyday life

3. Stolen Memory:

- denationalisation

- eradication

- expulsion

- disinheritance

- exclusion

- manipulation

- propaganda

- indoctrination

- Holocaust (and other genocide) denial

-“historical politics”

-“cultural revolution”

4. Abandoned Memory:

- non-action

- negligence

- indifference

- insouciance

- decline of attachment

- emotional atrophy

- disownment

- betrayal

5. Memory as a Trap:

- the terror of memory

- trauma

- post-memory

- memory and mourning

- nostalgia

- fixation

- the return of the repressed

- “primal scenes”

- compulsions

- stereotypes

6. Memory Regained:

- recollection

- anamnesis

- insight

- epiphany

- “time regained”

7. Dubious Memory:

- déjà vu

- confabulation

- fabrication

- rumour

- apocryph

- parallel histories

8. Memory and Imagination:

- facts and phantasms

- political phantasms

- historiography and fantasizing

- the realness of memories

- national mythologies

- reconstructions and narrations

- memory and representation

- memory and fiction

- non-fiction

- autobiography

- para-documentary film

- imagination in mnemonics

- collective memory and collective imagination

9. Memory and Art:

- literature, art, film, theatre as memory “media”

- socially engaged art: artists in defense of memory

- Joseph Conrad and Heart of Darkness

- Marcel Proust and In Search of Lost Time

- Thomas Mann and The Magic Mountain

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez and One Hundred Years of Solitude

- Tadeusz Kantor and the “cliches of memory”

10. Memory and Science

- mirror Neurons

- diseases and syndromes of memory

- “creating memory” in the lab

- memory of matter (inorganic memory)

- memory processing in technology

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Please submit abstracts (no longer than 300 words) of your proposed 20-minute presentations, together with a short biographical note, by 31 December 2023 to: conferencememory@gmail.com  or by REGISTRATION FORM

Notification of acceptance will be sent by 3 January 2024.

The conference language is English.

Note:

As our online conference will be international, we will consider the different time zones of our Participants.

The conference will be held virtually via Zoom. Different forms of presentations (also posters) are available

REGISTRATION :

In order to participate in the conference (as a speaker or an audience member) you need to pay a REGISTRATION FEE via bank transfer or PayPal:

PRESENTERS: EUR 35 or USD 40 or GBP 35 or PLN 120 - by 11 January 2024

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: EUR 25 or USD 30 or GBP 25 or PLN 70 - by 17 January 2024

NOTE: We offer a discount for our returning Participants.

THE FEE COVERS:

- LIVE access via individual link to all conference sessions (without installing any additional applications)

- the conference programme in PDF

- certificate of attendance  for Presenters and Audience Members (sent by email or/and by post)

- online community gathering

- easy access on any device (phone, tablet and computer) with the possibility to join or leave the conference at any time

Banking details:

Beneficiary name: InMind Support Beneficiary Address: Jelitkowski Dwor 4

Beneficiary Bank name: SANTANDER   

The SANTANDER Swift code is:  WBKPPLPP

Beneficiary Bank account numbers (IBAN):

Payment in PLN:           

95 1090 2590 0000 0001 4259 8763   

Payment in EUR:           

PL58 1090 2590 0000 0001 4259 8847     

Payment in USD: via PayPal - please ask for a special link     

In the description field, please quote your first and last name and a note " memory conference".

All banking charges are to be covered by the Sender.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

NOTE: PAYPAL PAYMENTS (USD, GBP or EUR) ARE ALSO ACCEPTED (on request) - Please ask for a  link.

 

CANCELLATION FEES:

3 months before the conference and more - 50%

from 3 months to 1 month - 75%             

1 month before the conference and less - 100%                 

 

Our email: conferencememory@gmail.com

Scientific Committee:
Professor Wojciech Owczarski – University of Gdańsk, Poland
Professor Polina Golovátina-Mora – NTNU, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

 

CFP - International Conference on "Mind Matters: Literature, Cinema and Culture-Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata

Conference Dates: 19-20 January, 2024 (OFFLINE mode)

Venue: Rabindra Bhavan, Centre for Distance and Online Education, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

(Address: EE 9 & 10, Sector II, Salt Lake, Kolkata, West Bengal - 700 091)

Keynote Speaker: Prof. Supriya Chaudhuri

Plenary Speakers: Prof. Amrit Sen, Prof. Anup Dhar, Dr. Prasanta Chakravarty and Dr. Nina Krajnik (online)

CALL FOR PAPERS

What precisely constitutes a mind? This inquiry has been a source of contemplation for both philosophers and those outside philosophical circles throughout documented history. Some assert that minds are spiritual entities that temporarily inhabit bodies, entering either at conception or birth and departing at death, framing death as the separation of the body's spirit. Alternatively, there are those who envision a more interconnected relationship between minds and bodies: a mind is present when a body is organised in a specific manner and absent otherwise. Yet, another perspective maintains that minds are indeed tangible entities, specifically physical ones, contending that minds are essentially synonymous with brains. The ongoing discourse with neuroscience, dedicated to scrutinizing hypotheses about human behaviour and neurophysiology through empirical methods, has expanded psychoanalytic conceptualizations to encompass areas such as motion, memory, sleep, dreams, conflict, and trauma. Importantly, both psychoanalysts and neuroscientists share a profound curiosity in investigating the neurological foundations of psychic functioning. Cognitive perspectives delve into the mental processes involved in perception, memory, problem-solving, and decision-making. When applied to cultural texts, this lens allows for an exploration of how individuals within the text perceive and interpret their world, process information, and construct meaning from their experiences. This conference seeks to explore the kaleidoscopic possibility of reading various cultural texts and practices vis-à-vis philosophy of mind, as it evolved through Cartesian dualism, Lockean empiricism, German idealism, and of course, an array of psychoanalytic theories. It aims to consider how these diverse philosophical perspectives have shaped our understanding of the mind within the cultural tapestry, laying the foundation for continued inquiry and dialogue in contemporary philosophical discourse.

Sub-topics for the conference may include (but are not limited to):

Literary Studies and Human Mind Dreams, Repression, and Desire Representation of Mind in Cinema and Popular Culture Psychology, Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis Memory Studies Mind and the Screen: Cinema, Games, and New Media Ideology, Politics and Human Mind Narrative and the Unconscious Language, Mind, and Meaning Understanding Affect: Visual and Plastic Arts Literature, Sinthome, and the Textual Unconscious German Idealism and the Natural History of Mind Collective Unconscious and Archetypes Mind-Body Dualism Artificial Consciousness, AI and Desiring Machines Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Mind Mysticism, Planes of Consciousness, and Yoga Psychology Psychobiology and Cognitive Science Qualia, Rhizomatic Consciousness, Neuroaesthetics

DEADLINE for ABSTRACT SUBMISSION: 20 DECEMBER, 2023.

Please submit your ABSTRACT (about 250 words) along with your Paper Title, Name, Designation, Affiliating Institution and your Email-ID using the link below:

https://forms.gle/5zCzDEMPzCMEw2XHA  Selected participants will be notified via email by 30 December, 2023.Select papers may be published in a book after the conference.

REGISTRATION FEES (to be collected after Abstract Selection)

Paper Presenters (any discipline/department)

• Faculty Members/Professionals: INR 800/-
• Students/Research Scholars: INR 500/-

Participants (Non-presenters): INR 150/-

The registration fee will cover Conference Kit, Lunch, and Refreshments during the conference.

No travel bursary or accommodation is available. Certificates will be provided.

For any queries, please contact: cdoerbu.eng@gmail.com 

CFP : PSYCHOANALYSIS AND POLITICS

by

ANXIOUS ENCOUNTERS AND FORCES OF FEAR – SPRING SYMPOSIUM IN THE ROOMS OF THE PARIS PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY (SPP),

21 Rue Daviel, 75013, Paris,

March 31st-April 2nd 2017

Speakers include:

PINA ANTINUCCI (Psychoanalyst, British Psychoanalytical Society) – Encountering the Uncanny

JIM GRABOWSKI (Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, Institute for Clinical Social Work) – Department of Abuse and Neglect: A Confusion of the Tongues in Chicago Child Welfare

SCOTT GRAYBOW (Psychotherapist, adjunct professor, Metropolitan College of New York) – Fearing the News: On the Role of Fear in the Social Character of American, White, Working Class Males

Asserting that the first situational phobias of children are those of darkness and solitude, Freud wrote; “While I was in the next room, I heard a child who was afraid of the dark call out: ‘Do speak to me, Auntie! I’m frightened!’ ‘Why, what good would that do? You can’t see me.’ To this the child replied: ‘If someone speaks, it gets lighter.’ Thus a longing felt in the dark is transformed into a fear of the dark” (1916-1917 [1915-1917], 407). The reason why a child is frightened of a strange face, he reflected, is his adjustment to the sight of a familiar and beloved figure – that of his mother. “It is his disappointment and longing that are transformed into anxiety” – having become unemployable, his libido is discharged as anxiety (407). In 1920, Freud declared that fright, fear and anxiety can be clearly distinguished in their relation to danger. While fear requires a definite object, anxiety is a state of expecting or preparing for danger, though the danger may be unknown, and fright emphasizes the factor of surprise, occurring when someone has run into danger without being prepared for it (1920g). He later abandoned this distinction in favour of describing automatic anxiety and anxiety as a signal, with a felt situation of helplessness at its core, whether the danger is internal or external; “the essence and meaning of a danger-situation […] consists in the subject’s estimation of his own strength compared to the magnitude of the danger and in his admission of helplessness in the face of it – physical helplessness if the danger is real and psychical helplessness if the danger is instinctual” (1926d [1925], 137). Anxiety consists both in the expectation of a trauma and a repetition of it in a mitigated form. “A danger-situation is a recognized, remembered, expected situation of helplessness. Anxiety is the original reaction to helplessness in the trauma and is reproduced later on in the danger-situation as a signal for help. The ego, which experienced the trauma passively, now repeats it actively in a weakened version, in the hope of being able itself to direct its course. It is certain that children behave in this fashion towards every distressing impression they receive, by reproducing it in their play” (166-167). The latter observation may lead to questions of how fear is handled culturally, depicted, denied, displaced, nourished, detested or enjoyed.

The political theorist who most famously draws on fear as a reason and foundation for submitting to political organization is Thomas Hobbes (1651), who referred to our fear of being killed by each other and declared that the sovereign’s role is to safeguard the subjects’ right to life. As Corey Robin points out (2004, 53), Montesquieu too, though less explicitly, turned to fear as a foundation for politics, the fear of despotism authorizing his liberal state where mediating institutions keep each other in check so as to avoid a too large concentration of power. Interestingly, the idea of a negative ground for human association recurs in Menzies Lyth (1960) and in Elliot Jaques, “one of the primary cohesive elements […] is that of defence against psychotic anxiety” (1955, 497).

“Upon this a question arises”, wrote Machiavelli (1515), “whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved”, since “men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails”. Descriptively and normatively, views differ as to whether fear is needed as a civilizing factor. Perhaps most strongly against its employment was Winnicott, stating that “moral education follows naturally on the arrival of morality in the child by the natural developmental processes that good care facilitates” (1965, 100). In present day politics fear is most notably evoked in connection with the figures of foreigners, Muslims and terrorists, sometimes combined into one. Terror might be thought of as recreation of terror, as a staging of revenge, or as merging with a higher purpose (Nosek, Erlich 2003). Fear, in Ahmed’s words, “is named in the very naming of terrorism; terrorists are immediately identified as agents of extreme fear, that is, those who seek to make others afraid (2014, 72) Thus “We can recall the repetition of stereotypes about the black man in the encounter described by Frantz Fanon: this repetition works by generating the other as the object of fear, a fear which is then taken on by the other, as its own (75-76). This is to evoke the theme of who fears who, who is posited as fear-invoking, and of how, in defending against fear we may create more fear, solidifying a shared fantasy into a social reality.

The topic of transformations of affects, how fear or anxiety may arise as a result of sexual desire or aggression, or in turn be changed into other affects such as guilt or hate, may lead to questions of how fear relate to sexuality in sexism and homophobia. To Winnicott, fear of WOMAN (in both men and women) is rooted in early dependence upon one’s mother, not remembered or acknowledged, “responsible for the immense amount of cruelty to women”, and he hypothesised that “One of the roots of the need to be a dictator can be a compulsion to deal with this fear of woman by encompassing her and acting for her” (1965, 252, 253). To Chodorow, “Masculinity defines itself as not-femininity and not-mother, in a way that femininity is not cast primarily as not-masculinity or not-father” (2003, 103). Furthermore: “Masculinity is not being a boy-child in relation to adult father” and “The worst male violence may occur when fantasies of humiliation by men (The man-boy dichotomy) become linked with fears of feminization and loss of selfhood (the male-female dichotomy)” (99) – and split-off qualities are attacked in the other who is seen as their representative. We might also refer to Kristeva’s thoughts on how “I expel myself, I spit myself out, I abject myself within the same motion through which “I” claim to establish myself (1982, 3). In reflecting on internalized homophobia as potentially applicable to anyone, Moss describes the original source of anxiety as the idea that a particular homoerotic impulse is dangerous. When it becomes externalized the idea is projected and reconfigured into a perception: “One thinks danger alone, but one sees it in company. The plural voice sees danger and hates its carrier. The idiosyncratic singular voice thinks danger and aims, alone, to avert it. The difference between the plural and singular voices is the difference between what seems like knowledge and what seems like feeling” (2003, 204).

We invite proposals for papers that explore conscious and unconscious fear and its social and political vicissitudes.

This is an interdisciplinary conference – we invite theoretical contributions and historical, literary or clinical case studies on these and related themes from philosophers, sociologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, group analysts, literary theorists, historians, anthropologists, and others. Perspectives from different psychoanalytic schools will be most welcome. We promote discussion among the presenters and participants, for the symposium series creates a space where representatives of different perspectives come together, engage with one another’s contributions and participate in a community of thought. Therefore, attendance to the whole symposium is obligatory. Due to the nature of the forum audio recording is not permitted.

Presentations are expected to take half an hour. Another 20 minutes is set aside for discussion. There is a 10 min break in between each paper. Please send an abstract of 200 to 300 words, attached in a word-document, to moc.liamg@scitilop.sisylanaohcysp by October 5th 2016. We will respond by, and present a preliminary programme on October 15th 2016. If you would like to sign up to participate without presenting a paper, please contact us after this date.

This is a relatively small symposium where active participation is encouraged and an enjoyable social atmosphere is sought. A participation fee, which includes a shared dinner with wine, of € 299 before November 15th 2016 – € 377 between November 15th 2016 and January 15th 2017 – € 455 after January 15th, is to be paid before the symposium. Fees must be paid via Picatic (Picatic fees are not included in the price). Your place is only confirmed once we have received your registration including payment is completed. Additional information will be given after your abstract has been accepted or after the programme has been finalized.

We would like to thank the Paris Psychoanalytical Society (SPP).

Unfortunately, we are unable to offer travel grants or other forms of financial assistance for this event, though we will be able to assist you in finding affordable accommodation after November 15th 2016. Please contact us if you wish to make a donation towards the conference. We thank all donors in advance!

NB: Please make sure you read the Guide for abstracts thoroughly: http://www.psa-pol.org/?page_id=363

The conference lasts for three full days, from about 9 am until about 6 pm Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The time frame for each paper is 30 min for the presentation itself + 20 min for discussion, 50 min in total, and with a 10 min break in between each paper. This is an interdisciplinary conference. Perspectives from different psychoanalytic schools will be most welcome. We promote discussion among the presenters and participants; the symposium series creates a space where representatives of different perspectives come together, engage with one another’s contributions and participate in a community of thought. Therefore, attendance of the whole symposium is obligatory. Due to the nature of the forum audio recording is not permitted. This is a relatively small symposium where active participation is encouraged and an enjoyable social atmosphere is sought. A participation fee, which includes a shared dinner with wine, of € 299 before November 15th 2016 – € 377 between November 15th 2016 and January 15th 2017 – € 455 after January 15th, is to be paid before the symposium. Fees must be paid via Picatic (Picatic fees are not included in the price). Your place is only confirmed once your registration including payment is completed.

Unfortunately, we are unable to offer travel grants or other forms of financial assistance for this event, though we will be able to assist you in finding affordable accommodation after January 15th. Please contact us if you wish to make a donation towards the conference. We thank all donors in advance! We would like to thank the Paris Psychoanalytic Society.

For More Information :