Conference Announcement.

From: IVORY::SLYNCH "Shirley Lynch" 16-MAR-1995 10:53:21.96
To: SKATZ
CC: SLYNCH
Subj: Info for Internet (Fouault Study Group)

Conference
Foucault and Psychoanalysis
University of Western Ontario
Spring 1996
Organizer: Richard Dellamora


The purpose of the conference is to bring together graduate students and
members of faculty from Canada and the United States to consider the
relationship between Foucault and the thought and institution of
psychoanalysis. Full-length papers (45 minutes) will address this question
by returning to writing by early Foucault, that is Foucault's work up to
and including THE MADNESS OF CIVILIZATION (1961), in relation to the
concept of agency in Foucault's thought. Proposals are welcome that focus
not only on textual analysis but also on historical, political, and
philosophic contexts in which Foucault first began to publish.

Because of Foucault's antagonism to institutional formations of
psychoanalysis, it is often assumed that he merely negates the significance
of psychoanalysis in contemporary thinking. This assumption, however,
needs to be weighed against the assertion that he makes in THE ORDER OF
THINGS (1970):"Psychoanalysis and ethnology occupy a privileged position in
our knowledge--not because they have established the foundations of their
positivity better than any other human science, and at last accomplished
the old attempt to be truly scientific; but rather because, on the confines
of all the branches of knowledge investigating man, they form an undoubted
and inexhaustible treasure-hoard of experiences and concepts, and above all
a perpetual principle of dissatisfaction, of calling into question, of
criticism and contestation of what may seem, in other respects, to be
established." In what ways does Foucault respond positively to
psychoanalysis as "perpetual principle of dissatisfaction" in his first
engagements with it?

The conference will last one and one half days. Funding to enable
panelists to present papers is being sought by means of an application for
a conference grant submitted to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada.

Proposals and suggestions for the conference should be sent to: Richard
Dellamora, Cultural Studies Programme, Trent University, Peterborough,
Ontario K9J 7B8. Phone: 416-778-5400; fax: 705-748-1430; e-mail
RDellamora@xxxxxxxxx.

Conference organizer: Richard Dellamora is a Visiting Scholar at the Centre
for the Study of Theory and Criticism, University of Western Ontario,
winter term, 1996. He completed APOCALYPTIC OVERTURES: SEXUAL POLITICS AND
THE SENSE OF AN ENDING (Rutgers Univ. Press, 1994) while a Visiting Fellow
in the department of English at Princeton University in 1992-1993. He is
also the author of MASCULINE DESIRE: THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF VICTORIAL
AESTHETICISM (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1990) and POSTMODERN
APOCALYPSE:CULTURAL THEORY AND PRACTICE AT THE END (Cultural Studies
Series, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming September, 1995).

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