40th International Conference on Psychology and the Arts
The Center for Advanced Academic Studies (CAAS), University of Zagreb,
June 26—June 30, 2024
Sponsored by The PsyArt Foundation and CAAS
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Welcome
We are pleased to announce that the 40th International Conference on Psychology and the Arts will be held at the Center for Advanced Academic Studies (CAAS), University of Zagreb, Ul. don Frana Bulića 4, 20000, Dubrovnik, Croatia, June 26-June 30, 2024. CAAS is an educational establishment located in a region with a rich history that dates back to around the 6th century. CAAS was founded by the University of Zagreb as a public academic institution for international scientific programs and postgraduate studies . The conference is sponsored and hosted by The PsyArt Foundation (www.psyart.org) and CAAS (www.caas.unizg.hr/index.html ).
This year’s plenary speaker is Isabel Millar, Ph.D. Dr. Millar is a philosopher and psychoanalytic theorist. Her book, The Psychoanalysis of Artificial Intelligence, was published in 2021 in the Palgrave Lacan Series. Dr. Millar is an Associate Researcher at Newcastle University; Associate Faculty Member at the Institute of Psychoanalysis, Global Center for Advanced Studies (GCAS); and Creative Director of The Institute for Symbolic Exchange.
Overview
The organizers of PsyArt2024 invite 150-word abstracts for papers dealing with any application of psychology–including psychoanalysis, object relations, feminist, Jungian, or Lacanian approaches, cognitive psychology, or neuroscience–to the study of literature, film and visual media, painting, sculpture, music, performance, or the other arts. A maximum of seventy-five papers will be accepted for presentation. We also warmly welcome conferees who do not present papers. The conference is convivial and draws scholars from around the world.
Abstract submissions: deadline for abstract submissions has been extended to Apri1 15, 2024!
Registration fees: regular registration fees are due by April 30, 2024. Late registration fees are due by May 15, 2024. Late registration fees will NOT be accepted after May 15, 2024.
Note: the calculated conference registration fees are based on US dollar (USD) to euro (EUR) exchange rates calculated at the time this program was built in October 2023. These exchange rates fluctuate, so the prices will have slight variations at the time of your registration. USD represents the fixed price for registration fees. EUR represents the fixed price for hotel accommodation.
Your registration fee includes the following benefits:
- Opening reception at CAAS
- Attendance at all panel sessions; lunch on Thursday between sessions
- Afternoon city walking tour
Add-ons (not in your registration fee) include the following:
- Closing banquet at Banje Restaurant
- Post-conference tour to three Elaphiti Islands
Refund Policy:
Refunds will be given up to 7 days before the start of the event, i.e., June 19, 2024. After this date, no refunds will be given.
For questions or assistance, please reach out to the following organizers:
Alexander Venetis
Vice President, The PsyArt Foundation: a.venetis@uva.nl.
Antal Bókay
Secretary, The PsyArt Foundation: antal.bokay@gmail.com.
Marcie Newton
Treasurer, The PsyArt Foundation: mnewton@albany.edu.
Frano Hartman
Head of Office of the Centre for Advanced Academic Studies: office@caas.unizg.hr.
Ana Tokić
Senior Adviser for International Relations, Centre for Advanced Academic Studies: ana.tokic@caas.unizg.hr.
Preliminary Conference Outline
Wednesday, June 26
Welcome evening reception, 7:00 PM–9:00 PM, at CAAS.
Thursday, June 27
Opening of the conference in the morning; plenary speaker presentation; lunch; afternoon parallel panel sessions.
Friday, June 28
Morning and afternoon parallel sessions; walking tour of city in late afternoon.
Saturday, June 29
Morning and afternoon parallel sessions; Directors’ meeting (PsyArt Directors only) in the late afternoon.
Sunday, June 30
Morning parallel sessions; members’ meeting in the afternoon and group photos; closing banquet in the evening at Banje Beach Restaurant: http://www.banjebeach.com/.
Monday, July 1
Departure or optional all-day post-conference tour to three Elaphiti Islands. Limited to 30 people. The boat leaves at 10:00 a.m. from Gruz port in front of the Urban and Veggie restaurant, a 28-minute walk from CAAS. Bring a bathing suit and towel. Lunch is included. Please arrive by 9:45 a.m.; we do not want you to miss the trip! Cost: $60.00 (56 Euros) per person.
Papers
Papers should be short, 20 minutes at most. Please observe the time limit. Normal speaking rate is 140 words per minute, and, for clarity, a scholarly presentation should be somewhat slower for the purpose of speaking at the pace of audience comprehension. Please try to limit or avoid jargon. Our standard 20-minute limit allows you to speak about 2400 words or eight to ten pages maximum. An additional ten minutes are allotted for discussion of each paper, usually at the end of the session. The moderator is responsible for keeping speakers to 20 minutes. The moderator speaks last, and it is therefore in his/her/their interest to maintain the schedule.
Note: if there are co-presenters, each presenter must pay the registration fee.
English is the conference language. We recommend that any speakers who are not native speakers of English accompany their talks with a PowerPoint presentation.
Following the conference, please consider submitting your paper to the PsyArt Journal for publication.
Please prepare an abstract, 150 words maximum. The deadline for sending the abstract has been extended to April 15, 2024. Send your abstract to PsyArt Vice-President, Alexander Venetis, a.venetis@uva.nl. If your abstract is accepted, an acceptance letter and registration details will follow.
Student Fellowships
The PsyArt Foundation is offering two fellowships:
1. Norman and Jane Holland Travel Fellowship of $500 / €471 for outstanding graduate student papers (prior to completing the Ph.D.). These can be awarded only once per person, but you can apply every year until you win. To be considered for a fellowship, please send your conference abstract by April 1, 2024, to the PsyArt Vice-President, Alexander Venetis, at a.venetis@uva.nl. If your abstract is accepted for the conference, you will be required to provide your conference paper by April 15, 2024, for consideration of the fellowship. Your conference paper will need to be supported by an academic recommendation. A decision will be made by April 22, 2024.
Please note: We do not accept co-written papers for fellowship submissions.
2. In memory of our longtime Vice President, Andrew Gordon, the PsyArt Foundation also offers one Andrew Gordon Fellowship of $500 / €471 for Ph.D. students who are participating at the conference for the first time. A supporting letter from the supervisor is necessary. To be considered for a fellowship, send your conference abstract and supporting letter by April 1, 2024, to the PsyArt Vice-President, Alexander Venetis, at a.venetis@uva.nl. If your abstract is accepted for the conference, you will be required to provide your conference paper by April 15, 2024. A decision will be made by April 22, 2024.
Please note: We do not accept co-written papers for fellowship submissions.
Registration Fees & Payment
The deadline for sending us your title and abstract is April 15, 2024, or when we have 75 accepted abstracts, registration forms, and registration fees, whichever comes sooner. Once you receive notice that your abstract is accepted, you will be notified and can then pay your registration fee to be assured a place at the conference.
For each person attending the conference, please fill out a separate online form and pay the registration fee. Please indicate clearly “No Paper” if that is the case. Otherwise indicate the title and abstract.
For a complete registration, we require three items:
- A completed registration form (see below) including paper title.
- Brief abstract of paper (150 words maximum), if you are giving a paper. These abstracts enable us to decide if your paper is acceptable for the conference and then to place your paper in an appropriate session. We also publish them online.
- A registration fee. See registration payment details below.
Important:
- Ensure your email address is typed correctly to receive a response. If, by May 15, 2024, you are not receiving emails from us, let us know.
- Do not assume that some currency arrangement you made the previous year is still effective.
- Do not leave your registration for someone else to complete unless you are a guest, i.e., a child under 18, friend, or family member attending as a non-presenter.
- Ensure that we have your complete registration (all three items) and your correct email address. Fill out a separate form and pay for each person attending.
To register, click here. U.S. and non-U.S. registrants will be taken to our PsyArt account at Eventbrite.com. (Note: if you plan to present a paper, the abstract must first be submitted for acceptance to the PsyArt Vice-President, Alexander Venetis, at a.venetis@uva.nl.
The conference registration fee is based on the current 0.94 exchange rate from USD to EUR in October 2023. These exchange rates fluctuate so the Euro price will have slight variations at the time of registration.
- $375 (USD) / €350 (EUR), plus processing fee. Amount includes reception, conference packet, panel sessions, coffee breaks, lunch on Thursday, and Friday’s afternoon walking tour of the city . It excludes the optional banquet and post-conference excursion.
- $200 (USD) / €189 (EUR) for graduate students, plus processing fee. Amount includes reception, conference packet, panel sessions, coffee breaks, lunch on Thursday, and Friday’s afternoon walking tour of the city
- $95 (USD) / €88 (EUR) for guests, plus processing fee, i.e., children under 18 of conferees; and partners, friends, or family wishing to attend the reception and banquet only, plus processing fee. Amount includes reception and banquet only. Excludes the conference and the activities therein, and it excludes the optional post-conference excursion.
$25 of the conference registration fee is a non-refundable tax-deductible donation to the PsyArt Foundation, which supports the conference, the journal, and the listserv. If you require a refund (given up to 7 days before the start of the event), it will not include the processing fee or $25 donation.
Late Fees
$50 will be added to late registration fees after April 30, 2024. No payments will be accepted after May 15, 2024.
The registration fee (except for the $25 non-refundable donation) is refundable for any reason until June 19, 2024, but not for any reason thereafter. The $25 donation makes you a member of PsyArt, which also entitles you to attend and to vote at the annual meeting to be held on Sunday, June 30, 2024, in Dubrovnik. Please do attend and vote.
Should the organizers of the event need to cancel it, we will notify you by May 15. In this event, you will be refunded your registration fee or the amount minus the reduced online registration fee of $100. Please note that we do not refund flights, hotels, or any other costs incurred.
If you are having problems registering or have any other questions related to registration, please contact our Treasurer, Marcie Newton, at mnewton@albany.edu.
To register, click here. (Note: if you plan to present a paper, an abstract must first be submitted for acceptance to the PsyArt Vice-President, Alexander Venetis, at a.venetis@uva.nl.
Accommodation
Dubrovnik has a wide range of hotels to choose from, from student campus rooms offering budget accommodation to cozy boutique hotels and a number of well-furnished quality hotels. Hotels in Dubrovnik are filling up quickly in June 2024. See below for two hotel options through Adriatic Luxury Hotels. You can also book a hotel through reputable sites like Booking.com, Expedia.com, and Airbnb.com or contact other hotels directly.
Occasionally, CAAS Residence has student accommodation available. Contact Dormitory at office@dormitory.hr to check for updates. You can also request a price list from our Treasurer, Marcie Newton, at mnewton@albany.edu.
Excerpt from the website:
Located adjacent to the exquisite Lapad Bay beachfront and Uvala and its famous tree-lined promenade, Hotel Kompas is less than 4 kms from Dubrovnik’s magnificent medieval Old Town city center. The glorious panorama of the entire Lapad Bay and its glistening clear waters and unspoilt beaches greet you from the vast floor-to-ceiling windows of our grand reception and our Zenith Bar. As each balmy night falls, our seafront Sphere Restaurant & Lounge Bar fill up and gently buzz with guests’ anticipation of the evening’s spectacular sunset show. For our health conscious guests, there is a jogging path and scenic walking routes along the picture postcard peninsula adjacent to the hotel, not to mention tennis courts nearby. (Note: This hotel is a 49-minute walk / 9-minute drive to CAAS.)
Prices:
Double / twin, classic: $ 280 / 262,00 EUR overnight stay per room including breakfast
Single use, classic: $259 / 242,00 EUR overnight stay per room including breakfast
Double / twin, superior: $313 / 292,00 EUR overnight stay per room including breakfast
Single use, superior: $291 / 272,00 EUR overnight stay per room including breakfast
Excerpt from the website:
Hotel Dubrovnik Palace nestles on the scenic seafront between a pine forest and the turquoise coastal waters of the lush Lapad peninsula. Just a few minutes’ drive north west of medieval Dubrovnik Old Town, the stunning location offers phenomenal photo opportunities of the Elaphiti Islands from every direction. Our contemporary luxury resort has direct access to a quiet and peaceful beach, two outdoor pools plus a third indoor pool. Additionally, we have a PADI diving centre, tennis court, a leafy jogging path, and walking routes through the picturesque woods that rise up Petka hill behind the hotel.(Note: This hotel is a 57-minute walk / 8-minute drive to CAAS.)
Prices:
Double / twin, superior: $313 / 292,00 EUR overnight stay per room including breakfast
Single use, superior: $291 / 272,00 EUR overnight stay per room including breakfast
Hotel reservations are made directly through the website http://www.adriaticluxuryhotels.com. On mentioned webpage, you should then go to Book Your Stay option, choose Hotel Kompas or Hotel Dubrovnik Palace, enter your period of stay and special promo code PsyArt2024 in area provided for it on the website. Cut-off date for reservations that will be made directly is 1st of April of 2024. or until hotel has available rooms.
Reservations after the cut-off date will be accepted based on room availability and at the contracted group rate.
Cancellation Policy:
After 1st of April following individual room cancellation policy will apply:
- Reservation can be cancelled without any charge up to 10 days prior to arrival date.
- If the reservation is cancelled in period 4 – 10 days prior to arrival date, hotel reserves right to charge participant’s credit card for 2 nights’ stay.
- If the reservation is cancelled within period of 4 days prior to arrival date, hotel reserves right to charge given credit card for total envisaged period of stay.
- In case of No-Show, the hotel reserves right to charge participant’s given credit card for total envisaged period of stay.
In case of cancellations that exceed the numbers stated above, the cost of rooms will be charged for 100%.
Travel
By plane
Dubrovnik’s airport is also referred to as Čilipi Airport. It is only 21 km from CAAS. You can book flights directly through its website if you so choose: https://www.airport-dubrovnik.hr/en. Most international airlines have flights that go to the airport in Dubrovnik (Airport code: DBV). Nearby airports include Tivat (TIV), Mostar (OMO), and Montenegro (TGD) that offer bus services to and from Dubrovnik. Montenegro also offers a train option.
About Dubrovnik
A dynamic city on the coast of Croatia
Dubrovnik, called “the Pearl of the Adriatic,” is a Croatian city on the Dalmatian coast, founded in the 7th century and protected from the beginning from many enemies by high defensive walls. Over the centuries, the city became a geographic and cultural crossroads. In the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Dubrovnik was a maritime empire, a rival across the Adriatic to Venice. But it fell into a long decline and by the 19th century came under the sway of Austria and the Habsburg Empire. After WW II, the city became a tourist mecca because of its perfectly preserved medieval splendor; in 1979 it was placed on UNESCO’s world heritage list. Dubrovnik was severely damaged by bombardment during the war between Serbia and Croatia in the early 1990s, but it has since been restored to its former glory.
Extend your stay to explore and experience Dubrovnik on your own. Here are just a few ideas:
City of Dubrovnik’s Official Page
Dubrovnik National Tourist Board
Dubrovnik Tourist Board
Lokrum Island
Things To Do in Dubrovnik.
About Croatia
Croatia | Facts, Geography, History, Flag, Maps, & Population | Britannic
Croatia | Facts & Information | Infoplease
Program
Thursday, June 27- Sunday, June 30: Conference Schedule
Local time is Central European Summer Time
The plenary lecture and panel sessions take place at the Center for Advances Academic Studies (CAAS), University of Zagreb, Ul. don Frana Bulića 4, 20000, Dubrovnik, Croatia. Tel. +385 20 326 300; office@caas.unizg.hr
Wednesday, June 26
19:00–21:00: Welcome evening reception at Centre for Advanced Academic Studies (CAAS), University of Zagreb, Don Frana Bulica 4 20000, Dubrovnik, Croatia. Tel. +385 20 326 300; office@caas.unizg.hr
Thursday, June 27
Opening of the conference in the morning; plenary speaker and fellowship presentations; afternoon parallel panel sessions; PsyArt Directors’ meeting
11:00 – 11:15: Opening of the conference and President’s Welcome (Second Floor, Room 2)
11:20 – 12:30: Plenary Lecture (Second floor, Room 2)
Isabel Millar
Partial Minds, Total Bodies
Dr. Isabel Millar is a philosopher and psychoanalytic theorist. Her book, The Psychoanalysis of Artificial Intelligence, was published in 2021 in the Palgrave Lacan Series. Dr. Millar is an Associate Researcher at Newcastle University; Associate Faculty Member at the Institute of Psychoanalysis, Global Center for Advanced Studies (GCAS); and Creative Director of The Institute for Symbolic Exchange.
12:30–13:00: Fellowship Presentation (Second floor, Room 2)
Kitti Jakobovits
“First Thought, Best Thought”: Psychoanalysis, Existentialism, and the Beat Generation
13:00 – 14:00: Lunch (Provided by CAAS in The Atrium)
14:00 – 15:00: Parallel Sessions 1 & 2
Session 1: Psychology and Society: On Social Mobility in the US and the Aging Crisis in Japan
(Second Floor, Room 4):
John Jacobs
Reversals in Social Mobility and the “Ghost” Narrative
Hisao Oshima
The Psychology of Japan’s Aging Crisis in Masahiro Kobayashi’s Film Trilogy: Haru’s Journey (2010), A Japanese Tragedy (2013), and Lear on the Shore (2016)
Session 2: Psychoanalysis on Sex, Violence, and Death (Second Floor, Room 7):
Rebecca Gimeno
Beyond Life and Eros: An Existential-Hermeneutic Exploration of Mortality in Anaïs Nin’s Diaries
Marcie Newton
#MeToo vs. #MenToo: A Psychoanalytic Examination of Sexual Economics and Violence in a Hashtag Battle Between the Sexes
15:00 –15:20: Coffee Break
15:30 – 16:30: Parallel Sessions 3 & 4
Session 3: Of Parents, Wombs, and Wars: Two Psychoanalytic Perspectives (Second Floor, Room 4):
Maria Ferreira
Twins, Wombs, and Future Reproduction in Dead Ringers (2023)
Terttu Mäkinen
In a Room of One’s Own: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Parenthood, the Womb, and the (Un)Symbolic in War-Torn Nations
Session 4: Lacan on Lack, Desire, and the Borromean Knot (Second Floor, Room 7):
Kyeong Hwangbo
The Cinematographic Staging of Desire and Lack in Parasite
Robert Silhol
How to Read and Understand Lacan’s Borromean Knot
16:30 – 17:30: PsyArt Directors’ Meeting (Directors Only, Room 7)
Friday, June 28
Morning and afternoon parallel sessions; film viewing
10:30 – 11:30: Parallel Sessions 5 & 6
Session 5: Beckett and Brontë: Psychoanalysis, Literary Theory, and Self
(Second Floor, Room 4):
Shoshana Benjamin
Why are Unnatural Narratives Unnatural? The view from Beckett’s Murphy
Maria Granic
Femina Ludens: Lucy’s Self-Fashioning in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette
Session 6: The Psychology of Staging: On Improvisation and Performance
(Second Floor, Room 7):
Ramuné Balevičiūtė and Dr. Agnė Jurgaitytė-Avižinienė
Existential Resonances: Exploring the Nexus of Psychology and Performing Arts in Improvisational Practices
Antal Bókay
Oedipus – the Birth of Theatre and Psychoanalysis
11:30 – 13:00: Lunch
13:00 – 14:30: Film Viewing (Second Floor, Room 4):
Robert Wilson’s staging of Oedipus Rex, based on Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus Rex (Οἰδίπους Τύραννος), introduced and commented on by Antal Bókay
Saturday, June 29
Morning and afternoon parallel sessions; walking tour
10:30 – 11:30: Parallel Sessions 7 & 8
Session 7: On Truth and Negativity: Bion’s Concept of “O” and Melancholic Pleasure in Melville’s “Bartleby” (Second Floor, Room 4):
Paavo Manninen
Wilfred Bion’s Concept of “O”: Psychoanalytic and Poetic Truth in Beckett’s Malone Dies
Samir Dayal
Bartleby’s Melancholic Pleasure, Or Just Saying No
Session 8: On the Melancholic Subject
(Second Floor, Room 7):
Nora Sediánszky
Hamlet’s Madness, Antonio’s Sadness, and Mercutio’s Illness: Interpretations of Melancholy from Shakespeare to Freud and Julia Kristeva
11:30 – 13:00: Lunch
13:00 – 14:30: Parallel Sessions 9 & 10
Session 9 (one hour): Psychoanalysis on Labyrinths, Myth, Religion, and the Sexes (Second Floor, Room 4):
Rae Muhlstock
The Minotaur: Linguistic Ambivalence and Visual Ambiguity
Julia Frigyes
“This little fellow should be beheaded”: The Masculine and Feminine Aspects of the Beheading Motif in Art, Religion, and Psychoanalysis
Session 10: Neuroscience, (Anti-) Psychiatry, and Narrative Medicine (Second Floor, Room 7):
Rita Tegon
Free Will, Guilt, and the Illusion of Choice: Intersections of Literature and Neuroscience
Adrian Chapman
“Coiled, Cool and Gathered, Ready for Anything”: The Charisma of R. D. Laing
John Kelley
Pills, Placebos, and Panaceas: Can the Art of Narrative Medicine Survive in a Technological Age?
14:30 – 14:50: Coffee Break
17:00 – 19:00: Walking Tour of the Old Town (leaving from CAAS; wear walking shoes, and bring a hat and water; ear phones will be provided)
Sunday, June 30
Morning session; members’ meeting and group photos; closing banquet at Banje Beach Restaurant
10:30 – 11:30: Session 11: Dali, Curation, Posthumanism, and the Vanishing Artist
(Second Floor, Room 4):
Alexandra Apesland
In Dali’s Bed: A Historical Study of Sensory Manipulation Through Curation
Stephen Benedicto
Embracing Alterity: Posthumanism and the Vanishing Artist of the 21st Century
11:30 – 11:50: Coffee Break
12:00 – 13:00: Members’ Meeting and Group Photos (Second Floor, Room 7)
All registrants are welcome and encouraged to attend!
18:00–20:00: Closing banquet at Banje Restaurant, Frana Supila 10/B, 20000 Dubrovnik, Croatia, Tel: +385 99 314 64 85
Website: http://www.banjebeach.com/
Monday, July 1
Full-day post-conference tour of the three Elaphiti Islands: Kolocep, Sipan, and Lopud.
Bring a bathing suit and towel. Lunch is included.
Meeting Point: Pick up at Gruz port in front of Urban & Veggie restaurant at 9:45 a.m.
Drop-off time: Drop off after tour at Gruz port at 6:00 p.m.
Contact Information Sheet
Emergency number
For immediate medical assistance, or in any other emergency situation, please call the emergency line (which applies to Croatia and all other countries in the EU). Simply dial: 112
Important phone numbers
For immediate conference-related assistance, please text Marcie Newton or Alexander Venetis (numbers provided in hard copy)
Centre for Advanced Academic Studies (CAAS), University of Zagreb, Don Frana Bulića 4 20000, Dubrovnik, Croatia. Tel. +385 20 326 300; office@caas.unizg.hr
Taxi information
You can directly call popular companies such as Taxi Radulovic (098 725 769), Mateo Taxi Dubrovnik (099 212 6440) or Auto Taxi Stand (020 411 411).
Dubrovnik Pass
With the Dubrovnik Pass you can bypass using cash to purchase admission tickets to any sights you’d like to see and for public transportation. Click Dubrovnik Pass for more details.
Abstracts
The plenary lecture:
Dr. Isabel Millar—Newcastle University; Institute of Psychoanalysis, Global Center for Advanced Studies; Institute for Symbolic Exchange, UK
Partial Minds, Total Bodies
The acronym TESCREAL, coined and disseminated by philosopher Émile P. Torres and computer scientist Timnit Gebru in 2023, circumscribes and critiques various interrelated approaches to the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) expounded by the usual parade of overconfident white men of a certain age with a penchant for eugenicist ideas with a “happy ending.” It stands for Transhumanism, Extroprianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Long-termism. It also captures and delineates what we could otherwise describe as the phallic enjoyment of technocapitalism, or simply, the jouissance of the idiot.
What these movements all have in common at heart is something which psychoanalysis recognizes all too well: the (always-already thwarted) desire for the augmented human body—the organism completely fulfilled, bursting with vitality, pleasure, and potentiality at all times. In short, a total body. But this is a fantasy propped up and perpetuated by countless fictional depictions of the future of AI, fantasies which often forgo many fascinating psychological and conceptual aspects of these imagined worlds. Netflix’s adaptation of Lui Cixin’s The Three Body Problem being just one recent example of how phallic fantasies of AI obscure the psychoanalytic and philosophical complexity of the human subject’s confrontation, not just with advanced technologies but our whole relationship to time and space.
***
Parallel panel sessions:
Ms. Alexandra Apesland—University of Regina, Canada
In Dali’s Bed: A Historical Study of Sensory Manipulation Through Curation
The year is 1938. The ceiling was covered in newspaper-stuffed coal sacks that hung dangerously low. The flashlight revealed strange looking mannequins. Every step crunched through the leaves on the floor and there was trickling water in the distance. You were in Salvador Dali’s bed. You laid in a space of contemplation at the International Surrealist Exhibition at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris. This theoretical study explores historical examples of art harnessing the power of sensory engagement through its display. While artists and curators have intuitively manipulated senses for centuries, only recently has psychology showed interest in deconstructing it. This work addresses the gap between the innate sensibilities of artists and curators and our modern psychological understanding of sensory experiences in art. Tracing senses from the streets of Renaissance Florence to Salvador Dali’s Bed, this work contributes to modern psychological and historical contextual understandings of sensory art displays.
Ms. Ramuné Balevičiūtė and Dr. Agnė Jurgaitytė-Avižinienė—Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Lithuania
Existential Resonances: Exploring the Nexus of Psychology and Performing Arts in Improvisational Practices
This interdisciplinary study, conducted by a psychologist, a theater researcher and a musician, delves into the multifaceted relationship between existential-phenomenological psychology and improvisation in the performing arts. By examining how existential themes of authenticity, freedom, choice, and the pursuit of meaning manifest in the improvisational processes, we aim to uncover the psychological underpinnings that drive spontaneous artistic expression. Our collaborative approach, integrating perspectives from psychology, music, dance, and theater research, seeks to emphasize the ways in which improvisational art forms serve as a conduit for existential exploration and self-discovery. Through qualitative analysis of improvisational practices, interviews with artists, and theoretical examination of existential principles, this study endeavors to bridge the gap between psychological and art theories and artistic practice, offering novel insights into the therapeutic and transformative potential of improvisation in the arts. This study is a part of a bigger research towards creating grounded theory on psychology of improvisational practices.
Mr. Stephen Benedicto—Artist & Independent Scholar, USA
Embracing Alterity: Posthumanism and the Vanishing Artist of the 21st Century
An artist’s enjoyment is embodied and reflected by others, like an analysand with the world as your analyst. However, unlike clinical analysis, the task of the artist is always political, an organizing force of who enjoys and how. What happens when we reverse the position the artist takes, and they become the analyst rather than analysand, a vacancy to be occupied?
Drawing from Lacan’s discourse theory in Seminar XVII, in a series of paintings, photographs, and sculptures, I interpret what it means to take the position of the analyst, concealing one’s desire and becoming the other’s “surplus enjoyment.” The artist utilizes waste bags, indicative of surplus, to build a landscape and conceal the subject within, understanding the figure of the artist as different from an exceptional enjoyment. Through a dialectic of art and theory, a new role for the artist is theorized for the 21st century and situated in posthumanism.
Dr. Shoshana Benjamin—Ben-Gurion University, Israel
Why are Unnatural Narratives Unnatural? The View from Beckett’s Murphy
Openly or tacitly, the paradigm that informs most contemporary approaches to literature implicates a one-system model of mind that works with a single language: the ordinary language that we use in daily life for multiple purposes. Departing from this view in my essay, “On the Distinctiveness of Poetic Language” (2012), I proposed replacing the one-system model of mind with a two-system model that differentially generates ordinary language and poetic language. Works of literature, I argued, emanate from a poetic/dream-making faculty that is separate and different from the mind we employ during normal states of waking consciousness. In support of my thesis, I drew on two sources: Freud’s theory of the dream and the two-world dichotomy set out in Beckett’s novel Murphy. I adopt and expand on the two-system model with the aim of providing an answer to the basic question of why unnatural narratives are unnatural. Along the way, I consider the answers posited in the scholarly studies of leading unnatural narratologists and point out the advantages to be gained by bringing a two-system perspective to the genre.
Prof. Antal Bókay—University of Pécs, Hungary
Scenes of Psychoanalysis – Freud on Stage
It may have been a coincidence, but I recently encountered several theatre performances starring Sigmund Freud. In these plays, the dramatic tension and the dramatic situations arise from the nature of his therapeutic involvement. The plays discussed are Terry Johnson’s Hysteria, Mark St. Germain’s Freud’s Last Session, Hélène Cixous’ Portrait of Dora, and Robert Wilson’s The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud. My basic understanding is that theatricality emanates from the transference-countertransference relation. It is an essential, overarching question whether these plays are based on transference/countertransference or whether transference/countertransference can be the fundamental engine of any theatrical work.
Dr. Adrian Chapman—Florida State University (London Centre), UK
“Coiled, Cool and Gathered, Ready for Anything”: The Charisma of R. D. Laing
This paper comes out of research for a book I am writing about the Scottish psychiatrist, R. D. Laing (1927-1989), and Kingsley Hall (1965-1970), an experimental community for disturbed people that he established in London. I focus principally on Laing’s charismatic appeal in the Hall (rather than his international renown). To begin, I set out the nature of the community, where there were no diagnoses, no treatment plans, and no prescriptions. Then I turn to what residents said about Laing. One resident described him as “coiled, cool and gathered, ready for anything.” Another said he would do anything for “Ronnie.” To understand Laing’s charisma, we must, of course, discuss the “magic” of the transference. I shall also consider Laing and Hall in their historical contexts, draw upon Weber’s discussion of charisma, and compare Laing’s appeal with some contemporaneous psychiatrists.
Prof. Samir Dayal—Bentley University, USA
Bartleby’s Melancholic Pleasure, Or Just Saying No
Herman Melville’s Bartleby embodies a paradoxical blend of heroism and anti-heroism, negativity leavened with an almost perverse pleasure. His obstinate but extremely enigmatic refusal of change challenges societal norms, disrupting established frameworks of identity and community. In his paradoxical passivity, Bartleby challenges conventional notions of “form of life” and introduces a subversion of sovereignty, employer-employee relationships, and human relationality and community. This subversion carries the potential for radical change at the private and public levels. Bartleby’s recalcitrant negativity provokes a response of horror in the reader, raising the specter of social isolation, yet it serves as a catalyst for introspection and societal critique. His radical non-sovereignty challenges conventional notions of belonging and alienation from community, offering a profound exploration of ambiguity, negation, and the complexities of human relationality. Bartleby’s disaffection from bourgeois society is his signature, his recourse to negativity as a challenge to normative subjectivity.
Dr. Maria Ferreira—University of Aveiro, Portugal
Twins, Wombs, and Future Reproduction in Dead Ringers (2023)
The purpose of this paper is to analyze Dead Ringers (TV series, 2023), a feminist reimagining of Cronenberg’s homonymous movie of the same name (1988), from a psychoanalytical perspective. Featuring twin women gynecologists, Beverly and Elliot Mantle, Dead Ringers combines gynecological body horror and a drive to push the limits of medical ethics with experiments to improve women’s health and their experience during pregnancy. In a probing examination of the psychologically fraught relationship between the two sisters is a focus on the womb. The uterus is a central motif in both the TV series and Cronenberg’s film, but the emphasis is tellingly different. In the movie, the fascination with the uterus includes womb envy and a desire to return to the Freudian oceanic bliss of the maternal womb; in the TV series, the uterus is an object of scientific analysis and medical experimentation, designed to enhance women’s reproductive functions and going as far as potentially to eliminate its use during pregnancy. Twinship as a central theme in the TV series will also be examined with recourse to Juliet Mitchell’s, Fratriarchy: The Sibling Trauma and the Law of the Mother (2023), in which sisterhood is a potential pathway to a less oppressive patriarchal regime.
Dr. Julia Frigyes—Vadaskert Hospital, Hungary
“This little fellow should be beheaded”: The Masculine and Feminine Aspects of the Beheading Motif in Art, Religion, and Psychoanalysis
In a continuation of my exploration into the significance of the Medusa head motif, I analyze the wild and bloody theme of decapitation. In various cultures, this can be the Christian female, e.g., Judith decapitating the male head of the Assyrian General Holofernes or the male, e.g., the Greek demi-god Perseus decapitating the female head of Medusa. The headless woman may also be depicted as the Indian lotus-headed goddess Lajja Gauri, and the headless man may also be depicted as the Headless Horseman. The Indian goddess Kali and the Peruvian god Moche, the decapitator, hold severed skulls and murderous swords in their numbered hands. A twentieth-century revival of the motif is Gabardi’s “inverted” Medusa: the vengeful female holding the rapist’s severed head. Through a psychoanalytic lens, the purpose of this paper is to examine ways in which the severed head expresses and attempts to resolve the terrible feelings associated with the possession of sexual potency and the threat of its loss, as well as the irreconcilable link between life and death that is aroused in people from all ages in history.
Dr. Rebecca Gimeno—Private Practice, USA
Beyond Life and Eros: An Existential-Hermeneutic Exploration of Mortality in Anaïs Nin’s Diaries
Anaïs Nin, a prolific diarist, writer, and lay psychoanalyst, has garnered significant scholarly attention for her exploration of themes related to eros and sexuality in her diaries. However, this writer explores a less-explored facet of Nin’s work—themes of death and mortality. Employing existential hermeneutic analysis, this study delves into Nin’s existential contemplations, unveiling the interplay between life, eros, and mortality within the pages of her diaries. This examination hopes to offer insights into Nin’s introspections regarding mortality, enriching our understanding of her literary legacy and life.
Dr. Maria Granic—Benedictine University, USA
Femina Ludens: Lucy’s Self-Fashioning in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette
This presentation examines Lucy Snowe’s narrative in Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Villette (1850), to illustrate the self-fashioning of a femina ludens as a psychological entity located within the social sphere. The novel reflects Lucy’s ludic drive, her reliance on intuition and observation followed by a reconfiguration of desire. While withheld speech indicates her retreat into the preverbal mirror stage and an inherently feminine backstage role that entails the repression of her feelings, contrary to the urge of her inner voice her role as an observer indicates her play, refusal to become objectified, and control, her ciphering herself to the unintended “decoders.” When she experiences love and enters the Symbolic Order, she becomes aware of herself as an individual, enacting meaning first on the stage, when she manipulates her audience, and then on the theatrum mundi. She expresses herself freely, her school and her narrative becoming the space of unrestrained yet gentle play.
Dr. Kyeong Hwangbo—Wonkwang University, South Korea
The Cinematographic Staging of Desire and Lack in Parasite
This study psychoanalytically interprets the film, Parasite (2019), to examine the psycho-dynamic relationship between the subject and the ontological lack that sets desire and the subject’s search for the Lacanian object a in motion. Director Bong Jun Ho’s acclaimed film portrays a diverse array of characters taking up their positions in a society neatly carved up into different socio-economic chronotopes. The three families of the film—the bourgeois Parks, the Kims as “parasitic” hired hands, and the hidden Ohs of the underground basement—are trapped in their own respective worlds. Despite the repetitive images of entrapment and insistent attempts at drawing proper social demarcating “lines,” the social symbolic of the community crumbles as the different desires of characters continue to make their disruptive presence felt. The violent debacle at the end of the film illustrates the ultimate cost of “parasitic” living, the opposite of the ethics of equal “para-beings.”
Prof. John Jacobs—Southern Connecticut State University, USA
Reversals in Social Mobility and the “Ghost” Narrative
Over the past decade, there has been substantial concern about the decreasing rates of upward social mobility. However, the discussion has largely overlooked “reverse” mobility as a considerable percentage of those who achieve upward mobility but later experience a marked reduction in occupational status or loss of employment. My prior analysis of life history interviews and quantitative data found that approximately 85% percent of these reversals were experienced by individuals who had traveled from lower socio-economic groups to middle and upper middle groups, rather than by individuals whose social origin were the middle- or upper middle-classes. This presentation examines predictors of reverse mobility in an analysis of life history interviews, and the often told “ghostly narrative” as the past returns to haunt the present, to explain the recent financial decline in terms of the past.
Ms. Kitti Jakobovits—University of Pécs, Hungary
“First Thought, Best Thought”: Psychoanalysis, Existentialism, and the Beat Generation
The Beat generation was a unique group of writers and poets in the 1940s and 1950s in the USA. Their lifestyle and experimental writing techniques had an influential socio-cultural effect on literature and the contemporary art world. In my presentation—as an initial step in my doctoral research—I outline connections between the Beat writers’ psyches and creative methods from psychoanalytic and existential psychology approaches. For example, the Beat motto, “first thought, best thought,” illustrated in the spontaneous stream of consciousness writing technique, is, I suggest, very similar to the psychoanalytic unconscious associations and the phenomenological approach of existential psychology.
Prof. John Kelley—Endicott College, USA
Pills, Placebos, and Panaceas: Can the Art of Narrative Medicine Survive in a Technological Age?
Medicine is both art and science, but stunning technological advances in science have led us to de-emphasize the art of medicine. The burgeoning field of placebo studies provides a welcome countercurrent to this trend. Since placebos are inert, the placebo effect is the effect of something that has no effect—which is impossible. Instead, the placebo effect arises from the ritual of treatment and to its symbolic meaning. Consciously or unconsciously, patients and clinicians together construct a narrative of illness, treatment, and healing; and the meaning that emerges from that therapeutic interaction drives placebo effects. Research shows that placebos have remarkable effects in many disorders; it also shows that the meaning created during the clinical encounter is as beneficial in active treatments as it is in placebo treatments. In this talk, I will expand on these theoretical ideas, provide some supporting empirical data from clinical trials, and discuss implications.
Dr. Terttu Mäkinen—Private Practice, Finland
In a Room of One’s Own: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Parenthood, the Womb, and the (Un) Symbolic in War-Torn Nations
“A Room of One’s Own” (Virginia Woolf’s classical essay) is a text about women in which Woolf examines the role of women in society under the shelter or the shadow of men. Béla Bartók composed an opera called Duke Blue Beard’s Castle, and composer Outi Tarkiainen’s opera, Bluebeard’s Castle, integrates the castle of Duke Blue Beard and the female room of one’s own with the castle presented as a dream-like psychological drama of the subconscious. Mexican artist Frida Kahlo wanted a room of her own in the marital house, a room where anyone could enter without permission. And the Finnish writer, Anni Swan, told stories about the womb of the mythical forest and the development of the child’s symbolic subjective transformation following the necessary separation of the mother. Mothers have forever—voluntarily, ambivalently, with desire, as sexually abused, or raped, or in many other situations—made space for new life inside them. Peaceful times, wars, decades have varied, but these new individual lives have begun under many kinds of situations and relations. In hard times, the symbolic mother’s womb of motherhood must give shelter to keep others alive and provide protection to those who become victims in war-torn nations. Fatherhood functions often close to life and death. In this presentation, I pose an essential question: is psychoanalysis capable of promoting and integrating unsymbolized bad and good individually and in humankind? If so, the individual and societal good-enough parenthood may contain keys for a peaceful, creative, and loving atmosphere in which to grow up.
Mr. Paavo Manninen—University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Wilfred Bion’s Concept of “O”: Psychoanalytic and Poetic Truth in Beckett’s Malone Dies
For Freud, psychoanalytic truth was archaeological truth that could be reconstructed in the analytic work. For Wilfred Bion, psychoanalytic truth was more of an unrepresented or emerging truth. Bion was interested in art and the writings of mystics that approach psychic reality beyond representation. Bion’s concept of psychoanalytic truth, which is not represented even by symptoms or dreams, was “O.” O reflects the ultimate emotional reality of the individual, which as such cannot be reached. What did Bion want to do to his readers by using this concept? How are O and poetic truth related, and how can the reader’s intuition of poetic truth be used as a source of information on the (psychoanalytic) theme of the text? I will provide answers to these questions through an examination of Samuel Beckett’s novel, Malone Dies (1951).
Dr. Rae Muhlstock—University at Albany, USA
The Minotaur: Linguistic Ambivalence and Visual Ambiguity
Like the labyrinth that is both his prison and his palace, the Minotaur of myth is a hybrid, a single structure forged in the tensions between unlike things. While in language he is described by his component parts—half-man, half-bull—the Minotaur is emphatically hybrid, containing no borders between the man and the bull that make him. Thus, my presentation questions the (in)ability of the reader to process such ambivalence as a deficit of language itself, for words are read in sequence and not in the simultaneity that characterizes the Minotaur’s hybridity. To counter the literary techniques of Ovid and others, I draw on Lacan and Kristeva alongside the visual arts of Pablo Picasso, Michael Ayrton, and Alison Chitty to suggest a visual orthography through which to read the hybrid narratology of the Minotaur, allowing viewers to see, as Theseus did, the full narrative potential that is his birthright.
Dr. Marcie Newton—University at Albany, USA
#MeToo vs. #MenToo: A Psychoanalytic Examination of Sexual Economics and Violence in a Hashtag Battle Between the Sexes
I explore a complex struggle between proponents of the #MeToo movement and rising proponents of the #MenToo movement, which gathered traction following Johnny Depp’s public defamation trial of unfounded allegations of domestic violence by his ex-wife Amber Heard in 2022. As part of a larger project on media, sexual violence, and culture, my aim is twofold: 1) present an historical delineation of how proponents of the #MenToo movement map the progression of the #MeToo movement, including its ideology, controversy, and backlash; and 2) through psychoanalytic lenses—including Freud and Freyd—examine sexual economics, sexual violence, betrayal, and the infliction of narcissistic wounds. Focus is on Richard Gadd’s Netflix series, Baby Reindeer, and the book, She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story that Helped Ignite a Movement (2019), by Pulitzer prize-winning reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey who broke the Harvey Weinstein story. The book became a major motion picture in 2022.
Prof. Hisao Oshima—Kyushu University, Japan
The Psychology of Japan’s Aging Crisis in Masahiro Kobayashi’s Film Trilogy: Haru’s Journey (2010), A Japanese Tragedy (2013), and Lear on the Shore (2016)
On 29 February, 2024, Elon Musk tweeted, “Japan will disappear,” about its extremely low birth rate. The birth rate issue is closely linked with another serious problem in Japanese society: aging. An internationally famous film director Masahiro Kobayashi (1954-2022) focused on critical issues of the aging Japanese society in his final film trilogy, featuring as their hero a Japanese great actor, Tatsuya Nakadai, who played the role of Hidetora (Lear) in Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985). Nakadai is now “Fourscore and upword” (King Lear, IV.vii.61), fighting as an actor against the aging process. With his powerful realist depictions, Kobayashi psychologically probes aging characters in their crises: Murai Fujio attempts pension fraud to help his poor family; Tadao Nakai, a poverty-stricken old man, makes his last journey with his granddaughter for some aid; and Chokitsu Kuwabatake (a Japanese Lear), an old ex-star film actor suffering from dementia, tries to escape from his “prison” (a remote nursing home). In a sense, the director himself was also facing old age and approaching death when he was making this trilogy. This paper attempts to analyze the psychology of aging crisis in Kobayashi’s work.
Ms. Nora Sediánszky—University of Pécs, Hungary
Hamlet’s Madness, Antonio’s Sadness, and Mercutio’s Illness: Interpretations of Melancholy from Shakespeare to Freud and Julia Kristeva
My presentation will explore the concept of melancholy through Shakespeare’s works (especially Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and The Merchant of Venice), Freud’s studies on melancholy, and Julia Kristeva’s essay, “Black Sun: Depression and melancholia.” Melancholy is a persistent state and takes root just outside of a person’s conscious understanding. This condition, described by the Greek term of “black bile,” is a manifestation of the sensitive and poetic spirit in the Renaissance, rehabilitated by Marsilio Ficino from the negative overtones of the Middle Ages. In Shakespeare’s time, melancholy was a “fashionable disease,” a pathological mental state peculiar to the mens contemplantrix—both a disease and a spiritual energy—accompanied by symptoms of inexplicable sadness, pessimism, skepticism, decadence, alienation and introversion. In this presentation, I seek to interpret Shakespeare’s idea of melancholy in the light of Freud’s and Kristeva’s theories, from the exciting and elusive imprint of the unconscious to the “Black Sun,” the blinding intensity of affect that eludes conscious elaboration.
Prof. Robert Silhol—Professor Emeritus, University of Paris, France
How to Read and Understand Lacan’s Borromean Knot
This presentation completes last’s year’s short introduction of Lacan’s style and image and insists on the fact, quite visible in Lacan’s last published Seminar XXIII, that in spite of the precaution each speaker takes, one speaks of herself or of himself more than of the object he or she is examining—all this being obvious with Lacan.
Mrs. Rita Tegon—University of Salamanca, Spain
Free Will, Guilt, and the Illusion of Choice: Intersections of Literature and Neuroscience
Throughout history, literature has served a didactic function, often exploring the fundamental dichotomy of good versus evil as a cornerstone of human moral development. This contribution examines the motivations driving famous characters towards acts of evil within literary narratives. The aim is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between literature, neuroscience, and human behavior, questioning established beliefs about morality, agency, and the role of didactic literature. By identifying recurring patterns connected with decision-making and executive functions, broader human behavioral tendencies are illuminated. These phenomena are analyzed through established models but take a significant turn when exploring neuroscience’s implications on free will and moral responsibility. The findings challenge human agency, suggesting that free will is illusory according to neuroscience. They also question the educational function of literature, as characters may reflect conscious choices while lacking genuine autonomy.