The phenomenon of warfare is under-theorized to the extent that it is a virtual blank spot in social theory, despite that fact that war has shaped the course of history. Rather than interpreting the causes and meanings of extreme violence in war, social scientists have accepted the conventional idea that war is a fact of life.
This symposium is undertaken in response to the inadequacy of contemporary theorization proclaiming that social phenomena can be explained merely by identifying their “narratives” or “discursive practices.” With regard to the massive destructiveness of warfare it is necessary to pose the question: What precisely are the motives—the desires, fantasies and anxieties—underlying the human propensity to die and kill in the name of sociopolitical ideologies?
With the goal of analyzing the psychological and cultural mechanisms underlying collective violence in war, militarism, and the related phenomena of genocide and terrorism, the Library of Social Science put forth a call for papers that generated 200 proposals from scholars and professionals around the world.
A select group of scholars from the fields of psychology, psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, literature, law, military science, and religious studies have been invited for intensive high-level dialogue in a seminar workshop format to develop ideas and hypotheses on the dynamics of warfare.
Featured speakers include:
• Ana Carden-Coyne, Ph.D., Professor, Centre for the Cultural History of War, University of Manchester, “American Guts and Military Manhood”
•Gillian Gillison, Ph.D., Professor of Religious Studies, University of Toronto: “There Are None So Blind”
•Richard Koenigsberg, Ph.D., Director, Library of Social Science, “Dying and Killing for Nations: The Psychology of War and Genocide”
•Ron Leifer, M.D., Psychiatrist in private practice: “The Roots of War”
· Olek Netzer, Ph.D., Research Psychologist, Kibbutz Barkai, Israel: “The Virus of Dehumanization: Deciphering the Code of Destructive Behavior in Inter-Group Conflict”
•Eelco Runia, Ph.D., Research Fellow, Groningen University: “Vertigo”
•Juha Siltala, Ph.D., Professor of Finnish History, Helsinki University: “A Nation Reborn out of Young Blood: Sacrificial Fantasies in the Finnish Civil War, 1917-1918”
•James E. Waller, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Whitworth College: “Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing”
The Library of Social Science is a center devoted to the creation and dissemination on scholarship that has the potential to impact on the real world. Please visit our website at http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/
For information on this symposium or other upcoming Library of Social Science events, please contact Jay Bernstein, Ph.D., Symposium Director at 718-393-1104, by FAX at 413-832-8145, or by e-mail at libraryofsocialscience at earthlink.net ______________________________________ Website for the KOENIGSBERG LECTURES ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CULTURE AND HISTORY:
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