Studiekretsar / Krets 8 2007-2009 Sommarsession: Call For Papers 

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Sommarsession: Call For Papers

Inlagd i mars 2008

POLITICAL IMAGINARY AND HUMAN SUBJECTIVITY

Papers within political thought, psychoanalysis, philosophy and other disciplines are welcome - on these and related topics.

Political thought is interwoven with notions of political subjectivity. In deciding how to conceptualize the human subject - as self-constructing, or constructed identity, a bearer of interests, communicative negotiator, or cathected social meaning - certain notions of politics are brought to life. And vice versa.

40 years after May 68 – could the imaginary again become a political category?
Cornelius Castoriadis, influential thinker in the group "Socialisme ou Barbarie", was a great inspiration for May 68 rebel, Daniel Cohn-Bendit. One of the central ideas of the time was that politics is an activity of the imaginary: to visualize and believe in (cathect) new forms of social organization. The notion of "the imaginary" (l'imaginaire) is central in Castoriadis's thought. To him, the imaginary is what constitutes human subjectivity via the processes of sublimation and socialization. Even more original is the idea that the imaginary – and connected to this, creativity – defines the social-historical. Creativity, to Castoriadis, is "...the mode of being of the social-historical field, by means of which this field is. Society is self-creation deployed as history". Politics, then, becomes conscious, social-historical creation of imaginary significations.

Today, it could be argued, our collective consciousness is burdened with too much reflexivity. Critique has turned into hyper-reflexivity and irony. Radical political thought seems to be divided between, on the one hand, neo-leninist proposals for unspecified "action"; on the other hand, identity politics and positioning in an endless web of relations. Castoriadis suggests a third alternative, combining elucidation with the always a-rational aspects of human creativity. Psychoanalysis, politics and human subjectivity are to him aspects of one and the same movement: “the project of autonomy”.

Contributors are welcome to explore these and related topics. Comparisons with other thinkers within political thought, psychoanalysis, pedagogy and social theory are especially welcome!
Please send a short abstract (ca. 300 words) to the coordinators by May 1st.