[ecrea] CfP - conference: Fomenting political Violence - Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, Essex University, 9-10 Sept. 2016

*Fomenting political violence – Phantasy, Language, Media, Action.*

A two-day international conference at the /Centre for Psychoanalytic 
Studies, /
/University of Essex/, UK, September 9 – 10 2016, in co-operation with 
/Bournemouth University/ and the /University of Oslo/ (UiO), Norway.


Steffen Krueger, postdoc and lecturer, Dept. of Media and Communication, 
University of Oslo
Karl Figlio, Professor Emeritus, Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, 
University of Essex.
Barry Richards, Professor of Political Psychology, Bournemouth University.

This two-day conference invites researchers from a wide range of 
disciplines to address the relationship between phantasy, language, 
media and action. Do language and phantasy feed into one another, 
especially in the contemporary mediascape, fostering an extremist 
mentality that foments violent political action? And, if so, how can we 
understand the relationship between action on the one side, and phantasy 
and language in their specific forms of mediation on the other? Although 
it is difficult to establish causal links between, for example, racist 
slurs and racist violence, we can nevertheless observe how increases in 
ethnocentric, xenophobic and fundamentalist speech in online forums and 
on social networking sites go together with increases in right-extremist 
criminal acts, as is presently the case in Germany.

Various traditions of research into prejudice, extremism, violence and 
the media have taken different routes in conceptualising the links 
between the above concepts. Discourse analysis, for example, has pointed 
to the subtle ways in which language use can help make symbolic violence 
permissible. Social psychology, and especially the social identity 
tradition, has shown how typical tendencies in group dynamics suggest 
certain fault lines for larger-scale political behaviour. Media effect 
studies, in turn, have suggested a string of concepts based on 
social-psychological work, such as “uses-and-gratifications”, the 
“spiral of silence”, “agenda setting”, and “frame theory”, which can be 
instrumental in conceiving how people’s construction of reality, 
facilitated by media, might lead to widely held dispositions for the 
legitimation of socio-political action and/or the restraining and 
containing of such action.

Although there is a substantial psychoanalytic literature on prejudice, 
ethnic and religious hatred, and fundamentalism, there is little on the 
process of fomenting violence, which moves from phantasy through 
language into action. With a view to intervening in and advancing the 
above traditions, the conference invites papers inquiring into how 
psychoanalysis can help understand the build-up to eruptions of 
violence. How can conceptions of sociality, relationality, divisiveness, 
exclusion and affect, developed in various psychoanalytic traditions, 
shed light on the often invisible ties that link what we do to what we 
feel, imagine, hear, see, read or say – or to an atmosphere of 
extremism? Can psychoanalysis contribute to deliberations around policy 
and practice in relation to freedom of speech, ‘hate speech’ and media 
regulation, as well as foster a sensitivity to implied prejudice in 
everyday encounters?

The attempt to gain a more rounded, situated and dialectical way to 
understand these phenomena suggests ‘scenic’ methodology, for which the 
work of Alfred Lorenzer – a psychoanalytic-social theorist not well 
known in the English-speaking world – is central. We plan to reserve one 
session to explore his work, but we invite you imaginatively to address 
the full range of issues relevant to the topic of the conference. We 
encourage an open, exploratory manner and look forward to engaging 
discussions.


*Keynote speakers*:

- Vera King (Frankfurt): /"Fighting for something great ..." - / 
Intergenerational Constellations and Functions of Self-Culturalization 
for Adolescents in Migrant Families.

- Barry Richards (Bournemouth): /"A most brutal and implacable superego"/.


*Indicative **fields of research include*:

-       Psychodynamics and social dynamics of political violence, and 
their enmeshment / co-constitution.

-       Spaces, scopes and fields of action.

-       Gendered forms / gender dynamics.

-       Media discourses / media performances.

-       (Symbolic) interactions.

-       Internal and external worlds.

-       Freedom of expression vs blasphemy and prejudice.

-       -isms, -phobias and psychopathologies.

-       Methodological and/or theoretical reflections.

-       Researching across cultures.

-       Historical studies.

-       Humiliation and violence.

-       Violence and purification.

-       Bystanders and collusion with political violence.

-       Psychotic realities: Paranoia and delusions of threat.

-       Hate speech and hate actions.

If you would like to offer a paper to the conference, relating to the 
above fields or to other aspects of the overall conference theme, please 
send an abstract of 300-400 words to:
**

*(cpsfv /at/ essex.ac.uk) <mailto:(cpsfv /at/ essex.ac.uk)>*


Deadline for abstract submission: May 15, 2016.
(Delegates are informed about the inclusion of their papers within two 
weeks from the deadline.)
**
Conference fee is £150 (£100 for students and unemployed).

Affordable accommodation is available on campus.


If you have questions regarding the conference or call for papers, 
please write to: (steffen.krueger /at/ media.uio.no) 
<mailto:(steffen.krueger /at/ media.uio.no)>.

*
*

*Booking your place at the conference: 
**http://www.essex.ac.uk/online_shop/cps/events.aspx***
**
*Book your on campus accommodation here: **https://kx.essex.ac.uk/BnB/***
*Promotional code: CPS2016*

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