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Any Body, Anybody: The Matter of the Unconscious: Call for Papers

July 15, 2016

It is my pleasure to present you the call for papers for our 9th International Meeting. It will take place at the New School for Social Research Department of Philosophy, in NewYork, from November 10-122016 and it is co-sponsored by the Ferenczi Center and Division 39 of psychoanalysis of the American Psychological Association.

The title of the conference is “Any Body, Anybody: The Matter of the Unconscious.”  With this title, we invite reflections on the body and the materiality of the unconscious. How does psychoanalysis help us think about how bodies become laden with and deprived of identity in a social and political space?  The term “Anybody” also asks us to think about how the unconscious is not bound to a known identity but rather emerges from and belongs to a “nobody” that is nevertheless material; the phrase “Any body,” conjures up the psychic ambiguities subtending the way sexuality affects every body including but not limited to trans-sexual bodies. This conference also offers us an opportunity to think about how the targets of recent acts of terrorism are construed as “anybodies” and/or “nobodies.”

The unconscious is a matter of matter: it must be thought in terms of traces and inscriptions. Questioning the matter of the unconscious enables us to think how sexuality, bodies, and the unconscious are bound together. By re-opening the question of the matter of the unconscious, we are also interested in engaging with the various legacies of the linguistic turn in light of recent thinking about materialism.


We invite conference participation in several different forms: through formal presentations, organized panels, and active attendance in workshops. The conference will feature two workshops specifically designed to generate collective conversation and debate: 1) a half-day workshop, hosted by NYU, led by Philippe Van Haute and Emily Apter (tentatively titled “Sexuality in Translation”) on Thursday November 10 from 9-1 devoted to re-reading the original 1905 text of the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality in three languages: English, German, and French; 2) a three-hour staged debate on Saturday, November 12, 9-12: “The La-La Showdown: Lacan vs. Laplanche.” This debate, hosted by the Ferenczi Center at The New School, will feature an over-view and presentations by partisans of both camps as well as open discussion with workshop participants.

If you would like to present a paper, please send us 500 word proposals, accompanied by a short CV by August 1, 2016. We also invite panel proposals as well. All panel proposals should include a general rationale as well as abstracts and CVs of speakers for each proposed paper on the panel. We encourage you to consult the SIPP/ISPP website for information about the society and its previous meetings: http://www.sipp-ispp.org

People interested in attending the conference as “active participants” are welcome to do so. However, as space in the workshop will be limited, registration will be made available to the event on the SIPP/ISPP website. Participants who require formal invitations should contact us.

All contact should be sent to: 16SIPP@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Jamieson Webster, Elissa Marder

Organizing Committee: Chiara Bottici, Patricia Gherovici, David Lichtenstein, Beatriz Santos