----- Original Message -----
From: "Serguei Oushakine" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 12:43 AM
Subject: Announcing Symposium on the Psychology of War (January 15-17, 2004, New York City)


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
[log in to unmask]


Announcing the Library of Social Science Symposium on the Psychological
Interpretation of War
January 15-17, 2004, New York City


            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
[log in to unmask]


______________________________________
Library of Social Science
92-30 56th Avenue, Suite 3-E
Elmhurst, NY 11373

Richard A. Koenigsberg, Ph. D., Director
718-393-1081

Jay H. Bernstein, Ph. D., Executive Director
718-393-1104

Mei Ha Chan, Associate Director
718-393-1075

Fax: 413-832-8145
Website: http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/