Lene Auestad
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Lene Auestad (born 8 October 1973)[citation needed] is an author and a philosopher from the University of Oslo.[1] She has written on the themes of prejudice, social exclusion and minority rights, and has contributed to public debates on hate speech.[2]
Career
Her book Respect, Plurality, and Prejudice combined critical theory with psychoanalysis and psychosocial studies, examining the underlying unconscious forces and structures that make up the phenomena of xenophobia, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and sexism. It provides an overview of how social prejudices, and the discrimination and violence that often tend to accompany the latter, come into being. Moreover, It argues that in order to fully understand how a complex phenomenon such as prejudice works, we need to alter our traditional Western philosophical understanding of the subject as a supposedly fully rational, autonomous and individual agent. Auestad argues that we need a more situated and relational understanding of subjectivity and the subject, as prejudice and acts of discrimination always take place in a contextualized setting between subjects whose thoughts and actions influence each other.[3]
Auestad has also written about the rise of nationalism in European countries, both in terms of its expression in extreme far-right groups and in the context of everyday political language and policy.[4][5][6]
Auestad suggested that psychoanalysis can be used to think about the invisible and subtle processes of power over symbolic representation, for example, in the context of stereotyping and dehumanization, and posed the question of what forces govern the states of affairs that determine who is an 'I' and who is an 'it' in the public sphere.[7]
She founded and runs the international and interdisciplinary conference series Psychoanalysis and Politics http://www.psa-pol.org , which aims to address how contemporary political issues may be analyzed through psychoanalytic theory and vice versa – how political phenomena may reflect back on psychoanalytic thinking.
Books
- Traces of Violence and Freedom of Thought (co-edited with Amal Treacher Kabesh, Palgrave, 2017)
- Shared Traumas, Silent, Loss, Public and Private Mourning (Karnac, 2017)[8]
- Respect, Plurality, and Prejudice: A Psychoanalytical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Dynamics of Social Exclusion and Discrimination (Karnac, 2015)[3]
- Nationalism and the Body Politic: Psychoanalysis and the Rise of Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia (Karnac 2014)[6]
- Psychoanalysis and Politics: Exclusion and the Politics of Representation (Karnac 2012)[9]
- Handling, frihet, humanitet. Møter med Hannah Arendt (Action, Freedom, Humanity. Encounters with Hannah Arendt, co-edited with Helgard Mahrdt , Akademika, Trondheim, 2011)
Select articles
- Auestad, Lene (1 December 2015). "Basic trust and alienation or "we have nothing to reproach ourselves with"". Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society. 20 (4): 326–342. doi:10.1057/pcs.2015.41. Retrieved 22 November 2017 – via link.springer.com.
- Auestad, Lene (1 December 2011). "Splitting, attachment and instrumental rationality. A re-view of Menzies Lyth's social criticism". Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society. 16 (4): 394–410. doi:10.1057/pcs.2010.33. Retrieved 22 November 2017 – via link.springer.com.
- Auestad, Lene. "To Think or Not to Think : A Phenomenological and Psychoanalytic Perspective on Experience, Thinking and Creativity" (PDF). Revuecliopsy.fr. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
Interviews
In English: About the book, Respect, Plurality, and Prejudice, podcast on New Books in Psychoanalysis 11 September 2015 [1]
About hate speech: "Fierce online debate brings more prejudice" Alpha Galileo 13 September 2013 [2]
About the conference series Psychoanalysis and Politics "Introducing Psychoanalysis and Politics" in Journal of Psycho-Social Studies Volume 7 (1) 2013 [3]
in Swedish: •Lene Auestad, Iréne Matthis and Diana Mulinari: Vad ska vi med psykoanalysen till? (What do we need psychoanalysis for?) in the journal Fronesis, special issue on the psyche, (psyket)no.44-45 2013 [4]
in Spanish: Encuentro en la SEP del grupo Psychoalysis and Politics (The Spanish Psychoanalytical Society's encounter with Psychoanalysis and Politics) Interview with Lene Auestad and Jonathan Davidoff by the Spanish psychoanalysts Neri Daurella and Eileen Wieland, on the Spanish Society's webpages, (in Spanish) [5]
References
- ^ "Disputas: Nytenkende om fordommer : Institutt for filosofi, ide- og kunsthistorie og klassiske språk". Hf.uio.no. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
- ^ "Hatet mot hjelperne". Dagbladet.no. 21 September 2015. Retrieved 22 November 2017.
- ^ a b Reviews of Respect, Plurality, and Prejudice:
- Geerts, Evelien (September 2015), Feminist Legal Studies, 24 (1): 103–106, doi:10.1007/s10691-015-9298-0
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Weisband, Edward (December 2016), Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 21 (4): 434–437, doi:10.1057/pcs.2016.6
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- Geerts, Evelien (September 2015), Feminist Legal Studies, 24 (1): 103–106, doi:10.1007/s10691-015-9298-0
- ^ Yates, C. (2015) The Play of Political Culture, Emotion and Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 109.
- ^ Svendsen, S. H. B. (2015) Feeling at Loss: Affect, Whiteness and Masculinity in the Immideate Aftermath of Norway's Terror, in: Affectivity and Race: Studies from Nordic Contexts. Ashgate, pp. 133-150
- ^ a b Reviews of Nationalism and the Body Politic:
- Hodara, Joseph (January–March 2015), Foro Internacional (in Spanish), 55 (1): 353–355, JSTOR 43774515
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Rothschild, Louis (July 2015), Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 20 (4): 421–423, doi:10.1057/pcs.2015.33
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- Hodara, Joseph (January–March 2015), Foro Internacional (in Spanish), 55 (1): 353–355, JSTOR 43774515
- ^ Woodward, K. (2015) Psychosocial Studies. An introduction, London/New York, Routledge.
- ^
Reviews of Shared Traumas, Silent, Loss, Public and Private Mourning:
- Worman, Neil (July 2017), European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 19 (3): 329–331, doi:10.1080/13642537.2017.1348451
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Molofsky, Merle (November 2017), The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, doi:10.1057/s11231-017-9117-2
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- Worman, Neil (July 2017), European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 19 (3): 329–331, doi:10.1080/13642537.2017.1348451
- ^ Reviews of Psychoanalysis and Politics:
- Totton, Nick (August 2014), Psychodynamic Practice, 20 (4): 399–402, doi:10.1080/14753634.2014.946788
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Tyrer, Ben (January 2015), "Book review", Free Associations: Psychoanalysis and Culture, Media, Groups, Politics, 67: 85–90
- Totton, Nick (August 2014), Psychodynamic Practice, 20 (4): 399–402, doi:10.1080/14753634.2014.946788