Conference on René Girard and Psychoanalysis, 11-12 November 2016
Old Divinity School
St John's College
Cambridge
René Girard’s theory, developed between the 1960s and 1970s, is grounded on an intersubjective constitution of the human mind and behavior. In recent years, it has been attracting the attention of philosophers, neurobiologists, anthropologists, and cognitive psychologists at the international level. What is currently lacking is a full theoretical and practical engagement between Girard’s theory an
03/07/2019
A special issue of "Contagion" with some of the papers presented at the conference is now available.
Introduction: Intersubjectivity, Desire, and Mimetic Theory: René Girard and Psychoanalysis on JSTOR Pierpaolo Antonello, Alessandra Diazzi, Introduction: Intersubjectivity, Desire, and Mimetic Theory: René Girard and Psychoanalysis, Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 26 (2019), pp. 1-8
*Conference Podcast*
Pretty (Ugly) Before. Imaginary Identifications: Lacan, Girard, and Winnicott on Working Clinically with the Transgender Population' - Isak de Vries (Institute for Personal Growth, New York)
*Conference podcast*
"Windmills of the Mind: Cervantes, Trauma, and Mimetic Theory" by Prof. Martha Reineke
https://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/2365020
*Conference Podcast*
"From Mimetic Rivalry to Mutual Recognition: Girardian Theory and Contemporary Psychoanalysis', presented by Dr Scott Garrels (Fuller, Pasadena) now available
*Conference podcast*
Lord John Alderdice (Oxford) - Freud, Girard and the Psychology of Large Groups in Fear and Conflict'
An incident of “panic”-- a situation in which desocialization and deindividualization occur within a crowd of people in response to a threat, whether real or perceived. This results in what some have described as “unregulated competition,” which is the breakdown of social norms that occurs within a crowd as each person fights for his own advantage. According to Sigmund Freud, as we shall see, in panic “each individual is only solicitous on his own account, and without any consideration for the rest”. Elias Canetti concurs, depicting panic as a situation in which each crowd member “fights for his life” against all the others.
DUPUY, Jean-Pierre. Panic and Paradoxes of Social Order DUPUY, Jean-Pierre. Panic and Paradoxes of Social Order
"In the Freudian understanding of modern subjectivity, truth is no longer situated in the mythical and religious realms, but rather in the sphere of the subjective and the psychological. Truth here becomes, to use De Kesel’s phrase, the Freudian skandalons. René Girard already used the Greek word skandalon (an obstacle that one cannot avoid) to understand Freud’s conceptualisation of desire: linked to a particular obstacle, desire always return to what it collides with it."
"Psychologization or the discontents of psychoanalysis." by Jan De Vos
One normally thinks that we stick together with others like us,
and that we exclude others whose difference provokes antipathy
towards them. I will argue that antipathy is more rooted in
sameness than in difference. Consciously, we exclude others who are different, but unconsciously, we hate sameness, and avoid it by creating delusional differences. Hatred drives the projection of these delusional differences into the other that it creates, there to be exterminated. Overt differences, to which the delusional differences can be attached, mask the delusional projection and the source of hatred in sameness.
In what Freud called “the narcissism of minor differences”,
neighbours harboured the most persistent grievances against each
other.
"The Dread of Sameness: Social Hatred and Freud’s ‘Narcissism of Minor Differences" by Karl Figlio.
"The Narcissistic Woman: Freud and Girard" by Sarah Kofman
The Narcissistic Woman: Freud and Girard on JSTOR Sarah Kofman, The Narcissistic Woman: Freud and Girard, Diacritics, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 36-45