Decolonial Psychoanalysis
Robert Beshara
December 15, Wednesday, 6-8:30 PM EDT
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In this seminar, we will unpack the approach that Robert Beshara calls “decolonial psychoanalysis” by applying it to the “war on terror” discourse & the Islamophobia/Islamophilia fantasy. This will necessitate both an archeology of (counter)terrorism and a genealogy of the conceptual Muslim as well as an investigation of the psychologization of Islamophobia.
Book Description
In this provocative and necessary book, Robert K. Beshara uses psychoanalytic discursive analysis to explore the possibility of a genuinely anti-colonial critical psychology. Drawing on postcolonial and decolonial approaches to Islamophobia, this book enhances understandings of Critical Border Thinking and Lacanian Discourse Analysis, alongside other theoretico-methodological approaches.
Using a critical decolonial psychology approach to conceptualize everyday Islamophobia, the author examines theoretical resources situated within the discursive turn, such as decoloniality/transmodernity, and carries out an archeology of (counter)terrorism, a genealogy of the conceptual Muslim, and a Žižekian ideology critique. Conceiving of Decolonial Psychoanalysis as one theoretical resource for Critical Islamophobia Studies (CIS), the author also applies Lacanian Discourse Analysis to extracts from interviews conducted with US Muslims to theorize their ethico-political subjectivity and considers a politics of resistance, adversarial aesthetics, and ethics of liberation.
Essential to any attempt to come to terms with the legacy of racism in psychology, and the only critical psychological study on Islamophobia in the United States, this is a fascinating read for anyone interested in a critical approach to Islamophobia.
Facilitator: Robert K. Beshara is the author of Decolonial Psychoanalysis: Towards Critical Islamophobia Studies (Routledge, 2019) as well as Freud and Said: Contrapuntal Psychoanalysis as Liberation Praxis (Palgrave, 2021). He is also the editor of A Critical Introduction to Psychology (Nova, 2019) as well as Critical Psychology Praxis: Psychosocial Non-Alignment to Modernity/Coloniality (Routledge, 2021). Further, he is the translator of Mourad Wahba’s (1995) Fundamentalism and Secularization (Bloomsbury, forthcoming). He is the founder of the Critical Psychology website: www.criticalpsychology.org, and the director of the Critical Psychology certificate program at the Center for Global Advanced Studies. Finally, he works as an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Humanities at Northern New Mexico College. For more information, please visit www.robertbeshara.com.
Reading: Decolonial Psychoanalysis, chapters 2 & 3 in particular (about 50 pages). Professor Beshara has arranged a 30% discount with the publisher for this seminar. discount. On checkout enter the code: PBA30. Some reading material is also available at Eventbrite on registration.
Seminar Cost:
- $30 – Member Ticket for Incite Seminars Patreon Supporters at any level
- $45 – Non-Member (True Cost) Ticket
- $90 – Generous Supporter Ticket
- $15 – Student/Contingent Scholar/Activist Ticket
- Solidarity pay-what-you-can tickets are also available for those who cannot afford any of the above tiers. Please email us.
Registration
Please register by buying a ticket at our Eventbrite page. We are committed to making all our offerings accessible to those who are eager to learn, regardless of financial means. If you have any questions or concerns, please email inciteseminarsphila@gmail.com.
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