SSJ Members,

I've recently started a reading group in psychoanalysis at the Kitasenju campus of Geidai, and would like to extend invitations to interested parties from other institutions. This is an informal group, oriented primarily towards the psychoanalytic take on the individual/society relation, the effects of intercultural encounter (particularly colonialism/domination), and finally the specificity of the Japanese situation. We have already plowed through a very rough introduction to the outlines of psychoanalysis, including basic Freudian and Lacanian texts, but there has already been some demand for a recap session. The schedule is being set collaboratively, but upcoming readings will include the following, more or less:

Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (on colonialism and identity)
Mladen Dolar, A Voice and Nothing More (on communication and voice)
Takeo Doi, The Anatomy of Dependence (on Japanese amae)
Saitou Tamaki, Shishunki Posutomodan -- Seijuku wa ikanishite kano ka (Postmodern Puberty - How is Maturity Possible?)

The options are wide open after that, and I'm particularly eager for suggestions of the work of Japanese psychoanalysts.

Most meetings will take place in the seminar room on the third floor of the Kitasenju building, but if you plan to come please contact me directly and I'll pass along more details.

I'm not at all sure how those in the social sciences regard this literature, but perhaps there will be something of value even in the disreputable.

Thanks,

David Z. Morris
Postdoctoral Fellow
Tokyo University of Fine Arts

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At long last, my first academic article is out. Look for it in Critical Studies in Media Communication:

"Hick-Hop Hooray? "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk," Musical Genre, and the Misrecognitions of Hybridity."

http://www.mindslikeknives.blogspot.com