in theory, 1993--2003

ANGELAKI
journal of the theoretical humanities
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/routledge/0969725X.html

CALL for PAPERS

HOTEL PSYCHOANALYSIS

(Prop: Sarah Wood)

This issue of Angelaki will explore the after-effects of psychoanalysis
for thinking. Contributions are invited both from those who already work
on psychoanalysis, and from those who would be interested in this
proposal for their own reasons. In particular the issue is interested in
the aspects of psychoanalysis which are not in the first place
psychological. The main paradigm of psychoanalytic theory is still depth
psychology: a theory of the fragmented self is still a theory of the
self. This issue wants to encourage more mobile approaches and explore
the possibilities of contributors not only endorsing but also counter-
signing the signatures of Freud, Ferenczi, Fanon, Klein, Winnicott,
Lyotard, Roustang, Bersani and others. Hence the idea of the issue as
hotel ('house for the entertainment of strangers and travellers' OED).
Guest-contributors are invited to think about the history and future of
psychoanalysis (is it here to stay?); its props and refurbishments; its
private rooms and public spaces; signatures and countersignatures;
reception; transfer; cancellation; cost. It is hoped contributors would
feel able to allow broad questions of method and value into their
pieces.

I would consider psychoanalysis to be inseparable from idiom. Idiomatic
writing is what we want for this issue, precisely because it seems
unlikely to me that there is a properly psychoanalytic idiom. (Who wants
a word-perfect shrink with a tin ear?) Derrida glosses the term
'idiomatic' like this:

'A property you cannot appropriate; it somehow marks you without
belonging to you. It appears only to others, never to you, except in
flashes of madness which draw together life and death, which render you
at once alive and dead. It's fatal to dream of inventing a language or a
song which would be yours - not the attributes of an 'ego,' but rather
the accentuated flourish, that is, the musical flourish of your own most
unreadable history. I'm not speaking about a style, but if an
intersection of singularities, of manners of living, voices, writing, of
what you carry with you, what you can never leave behind.'

Idiom is what you might bring to a hotel, even if you arrived with just
the clothes you were standing up in.

Let us resist the constant academic tendency to assimilate and 'apply'
psychoanalysis. If, as Freud says in 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle,'
the scientific terms of psychoanalysis are a kind of figurative
language, there remains immense scope for inventive thinking about
psychoanalytic concepts and responsive reading of psychoanalytic texts.
The prime concept of psychoanalysis, affecting all the others, I take to
be the unconscious, which by definition escapes all assimilation, and is
the terrifying friend of all creative enterprises.

The formal and thematic scope of the issue will in part depend on the
writing that people submit, but I wish for two things: firstly, for work
that opens psychoanalysis towards readers of Angelaki who do not
necessarily identify with it, towards 'others'. And, to say the same
thing in other words, I hope for work that opens psychoanalysis to the
future. To achieve this it would not be necessary to write from 'within'
psychoanalysis, if such a thing were possible. In addition to spirited
and inventive articles, the issue welcomes hybrid writings that engage
with psychoanalytic theory, or play seriously with psychoanalytic terms
and practices.

The upper limit for submissions is 10,000 words.
Short pieces are welcome.
Enquiries from possible contributors are welcome.
Work can be submitted electronically (in Word, please) to
Sarah Wood: s.wood_at_ukc.ac.uk
The deadline for submissions is December 31 2003.

Dr Sarah Wood
School of English
University of Kent
Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NX
United Kingdom

Thank you for smoking. Please carry your key with you at all times.

* * *

ANGELAKI
journal of the theoretical humanities

'Fearless and inventive, this journal has reset the agenda for the
theoretical humanities.'
-- Peggy Kamuf, University of Southern California, USA

September 2003 sees the 10th anniversary of the journal. There is a page
at the website giving a chronological selection of 100 articles from
Volumes 1 to 8. Please click on 'In theory, 1993--2003' at:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/routledge/0969725X.html

At the end of 2002 the collection _The Question of Literature: The
Place of the Literary in Contemporary Theory_ was published in the
Angelaki Humanities book series (Manchester UP). Details of the book can
be found at:
http://catalogue.mup.man.ac.uk/acatalog/Angelaki_Humanities_.html

Gerard Greenway

Angelaki: journal of the theoretical humanities
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/routledge/0969725X.html

Angelaki Humanities
http://catalogue.mup.man.ac.uk/acatalog/Angelaki_Humanities_.html

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Received on Tue Jun 17 2003 - 10:17:46 EDT