[xmca] Marxism & Psychology Conference - August 5-7, 2010 (Extended Deadline: Feb. 1)

["Michael Arfken" <marfken@upei.ca>]

***Apologies for Cross-Posting***
 
I am happy to report that as of today, we have receivedclose to 60 abstract submissions for the conference. I must say that I amreally impressed by the quality of the submissions. It looks like we are on ourway to becoming a major conference. In order to encourage more submissions forthe conference, we have decided to extend the deadline to February 1, 2010.Please find below the extended call (including plenary bios). Please distributethis call as widely as possible.
 
Call For Papers (Extended Deadline)
Marxism and Psychology Conference
The University of Prince Edward Island
August 5-7, 2010
Website: http://vre.upei.ca/mprg/
Contact: marfken@upei.ca
 
Submission Deadline: February 1, 2010 (ExtendedDeadline)
 
In the history of social thought, it is difficult to find amore divisive figure than Karl Marx. For many, the mere mention of his nameconjures up images of totalitarian regimes dominating nearly every aspect of anindividual’s existence. Yet for others, Marx’s critique of the capitalist modeof production draws attention to the fact that our beliefs, thoughts, anddesires inevitably emerge against the background of specific cultural,historical, and social practices. 
 
The purpose of this conference is to bring students,scholars, and activists together to discuss exciting issues at the intersectionof Marxism and Psychology. While it is clear that a number of organizations aremaking important contributions to this area of study, we believe that the timeis right to open up a space for students, scholars, and activists from avariety of disciplinary backgrounds to reflect on the role that Marxism canplay in psychological theory, research, and practice.
 
In bringing together scholars at the forefront of researchin Marxism and Psychology, we also hope to give new students and activists anopportunity to interact with individuals who have made significant contributionswithin this area. By organizing an impressive collection of plenaryparticipants, we hope to foster an environment where students, activists, andscholars can identify potential graduate advisors, research assistants, andparticipatory investigators. This year, confirmed plenary participants include:
 
 
Kum-Kum Bhavnani isProfessor of Sociology, Women's Studies and Global Studies at the University ofCalifornia at Santa Barbara, where she also chairs the minor in Women, Culture,Development. Her Undergraduate (Bristol) and Masters (Nottingham) degrees arein Psychology, while her PhD (King's College, Cambridge) is in Social andPolitical Sciences. For the past 25 years, Kum-Kum has built on her passion forcritical/Marxist psychology and ethnography, and presently works in culturalstudies, women's studies, and Third World Development Studies. Her recent workincludes a 2006 feature length award-winning documentary film, The Shape ofWater narrated by Susan Sarandon, which reveals the intimate stories ofwomen in Brazil, India, Jerusalem and Senegal as they create social justice.
 
 
John Cromby is a Senior Lecturer inPsychology at Loughborough University UK. His PhD was from the University ofNottingham Medical School, and he has worked in drug addiction, learningdisability and mental health settings. His current research explores theinterpenetration of the body and social influence, with a frequent focus onemotion, affect and feeling and with respect to such substantive topics as‘depression’, ‘paranoia’ and chronic fatigue syndrome. His political sympathieslie with the libertarian socialist milieu, and he has been particularlyinfluenced by Debord, Vaneigem, Holzkamp, Vygotsky and Foucault, as well asMarx. He is a co-editor of the journal Subjectivity
 
 
Raquel Guzzo originally graduated fromPontifical Catholic University of Campinas, Brazil with a degree in Psychology.She went on to complete her Masters and Doctorate in School Psychology at theUniversity of São Paulo with a post-doctorate in Prevention at the Center forCommunity Studies at the University of Rochester, USA. She is currently aPro at the Catholic University of Campinas and a member ofthe International Committee for Liberation Social Psychology. She also leads aresearch group on psychological intervention, subject, and liberation supportedby the National Council of Research.
 
 
Lois Holzman is a Marxistactivist/scholar who has worked for 30 years to build bridges betweenuniversity-based and community-based practices, bringing the traditions andinnovations of each to the other. She is co-founder (with Fred Newman) anddirector of the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy inNew York City. As leading proponents of a cultural approach to human learningand development, they have made the insights and discoveries of Lev Vygotsky,Karl Marx and Ludwig Wittgenstein relevant to the fields of psychotherapy,youth development, education and organizational and community development intheir ongoing work to create a postmodernized Marxist methodology, known associal therapeutics. As author, lecturer and trainer, Holzman is in the thickof debates among Marxists, postmodernists, activity theorists, criticalpsychologists and other philosophically and politically informed scholars onhow to transform psychology into a radically humane and empowering practice.Her latest book, Vygotsky at Work and Play, relates the discoveries andinsights of Vygotsky to ordinary people and their communities and showsperformance methodology at work in key learning environments: psychotherapy,classrooms, out-of-school youth programs, and the workplace.
 
 
Gordana Jovanovic isAssociate Professor of Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Faculty ofPhilosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia. She received her PhD from theUniversity of Belgrade where she has taught courses in the History ofPsychology, General Psychology, Personality Theory, and QualitativeResearch. She was awarded a grant by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation(Germany) for her research stays at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University inFrankfurt and the Free University in Berlin. She was also awarded a study visitgrant by the British Psychological Society. She is the author of Simbolizovanjei racionalnost, 1984 (in Serbian, Symbolization and Rationality)and Frojd i moderna subjektivnost, 1997 (in Serbian, Freud and ModernSubjectivity) and various contributions in German and English. Her currentresearch and writing interests are in the areas of alternative scientificapproaches, with an emphasis on the critical examination of the role of socialsciences, particularly psychology in reproducing and strengthening existingstructures of exploitation and subjugation of people. In both her teaching andresearch, she emphasizes the importance of developing psychology as a criticalhuman science. She is member of the International Network of Engineers andScientists for Global Responsibility (INES) Executive Committee since 2003 andvice-chair since 2005.
 
 
Athanasios Marvakis is aGerman educated psychologist (University of Tübingen) and since 2007 AssociateProfessor in Clinical Social Psychology at the School of Primary Education ofthe Aristotle University of Thessaloniki/Greece. His interests revolve aroundpsychology and its relations with the various forms of social inequalities andsocial exclusion (e.g., racism, nationalism, ethnicism, multiculturalism),including youth as a social group (political orientations, youth and racism inEurope) and migrants in Greece. The last years he has started to be engaged inthe critical psychology of the “schooling-complex”.
 
 
Morten Nissen is Senior Lecturer /Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen,in community and educational psychology. His research is about forms ofcollectivity in connection with practical intervention. Theoretically,subjectivity is regarded as a participatory relationship (I and we) that isconstituted and develops in various kinds of production - meaning both creationand staging. Empirically, the field is social work with young peoplhmethodological reflections on practice research viewed as the social productionof prototypes in which psychology and other disciplines participate. Thisapproach is developed from the cultural-historical tradition’s continuation ascritical psychology, inspired by much social theory that takes up theHegelian-(or anti-Hegelian)-Marxist legacy of an epistemology of practice.Morten takes this to be a politicizing and trans-disciplinary approach toissues that people define as psychological. Morten is editor of the open accessjournal Outlines – Critical Practice Studies and member of the executivecommittee of ISCAR.
 
 
Ian Parker is Professor of Psychologyin the Department of Psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). Hewas co-founder in 1991, and is currently co-director (with Erica Burman) of theDiscourse Unit at MMU (www.discourseunit.com).His research and writing has been in the field of psychoanalysis, psychologyand social theory, with a particular focus on discourse, critical psychology,mental health and political practice. He co-edited (with Russell Spears) theedited volume on Marxism and psychology, Psychology and Society: RadicalTheory and Practice (Pluto Press, 1996), and Marxism underpins his critiqueof psychology in Revolution in Psychology: Alienation to Emancipation(Pluto Press, 2007).
 
 
Carl Ratner is a cultural psychologistwho uses Marxism as his cultural theory. He shows how Marxist cultural theorygenerates unique insights into culture and into the relation between cultureand psychology. Carl also explores political aspects of psychological theoriesand methodologies, and he shows how political insights illuminate scientificaspects of the theories and methodologies. He has critiqued scientific andpolitical shortcomings of mainstream psychology, evolutionary psychology,cross-cultural psychology, positivistic methodology, post modernism, andindividualistic-subjectivistic approaches to cultural psychology. Carl utilizesthe theory of Vygotsky to extend Marxist cultural theory to psychology. His latestbook is Cultural Psychology: A Perspective on Psychological Functioning andSocial Reform (LEA). His forthcoming book is Macro CulturalPsychology: A Political Philosophy of Mind (Oxford UP). 
 
 
Hans Skott-Myhre is aninterdisciplinary cultural theorist whose primary research area is thedevelopment of models of child and youth work that promote new politicalpossibilities for youth-adult collaboration that challenge globalcapitalist empire. His research includes the investigation of new forms ofcommunity, identity, body practices, and creative expression that holdpotential for resistance or flight for youth and adults working towardscommon political purposes.
 
 
Thomas Teo is Associate Professor inthe History and Theory of Psychology Program at York University andcurrent editor of the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology.He has published historical and theoretical articles in Theory &Psychology, New Ideas in Psychology, Canadian Psychology, Journal of theHistory of the Behavioral Sciences, History of Psychology, History of the HumanSciences, etc. The Critique of Psychology: >From Kant to PostcolonialTheory, his latest monograph, was published in 2005. Varieties oftheoretical psychology: International philosophical and practical concerns, hislatest co-edited book, was published in 2009. He analyzes the historical andtheoretical foundations of psychology based on critical-hermeneuticreconstructions. His critical studies focus on scientific racism in the humansciences, on the concept of epistemological violence, and on thecritique of ideology in psychology.
 
 
We welcome submissions for individual papers and panelsessions. For individual papers, please submit an abstract (150-200 words) nolater than February 1, 2010. For panel submissions, please include anabstract (150-200 words) for each paper as well as a brief description of thepanel (150-200 words). Please submit all materials to marfken@upei.ca. Abstractsshould either be inFformat).
 
For further information, please visit the conferencewebsite:
 
http://vre.upei.ca/mprg/
 
Sincerely,
 
Michael Arfken, PhD.
Director, Marxism & Psychology Research Group (MPRG)
Department of Psychology
University of Prince Edward Island
marfken@upei.ca
 


_________________________________

Michael Arfken, PhD
Department of Psychology
University of Prince Edward Island
Email: marfken@upei.ca
Website: http://marfken.googlepages.com/
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