Call for Papers

MYTH, LITERATURE, AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

Date: 2-4 September, 2010

Venue: Wivenhoe Park Campus, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

An international conference organized by the Centre for Myth Studies at the University of Essex, supported by the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies and the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies

The Centre for Myth Studies at the University of Essex is pleased to announce an international conference on “Myth, Literature, and the Unconscious” to be held at the Wivenhoe Park campus, 2-4 September, 2010. We invite proposals for papers (of 20 minutes duration), or panel sessions, dealing with the conjunction of myth, psychoanalysis, and literary-artistic activity. While proposals on any aspect of myth, literary, and psychoanalytic studies are very welcome, the organisers would particularly encourage interdisciplinary contributions. The topics might include, but will not be confined to:
Literary re-inscriptions of myths and mythic patterns
Literature as mythmaking
The significance and meaning of myths in psychoanalytic theory
Myth as the language of the unconscious
Archetypes, symbols, and metamorphoses
Myths in the inner and outer worlds
Dreams, visions, myths
Myth and re-enchantment
The role of myth in medical practice
William Blake and myth
Time, space and the primordial
Myth and modernism

A selection of papers from the conference will be published.

The deadline for proposals is 28 February, 2010. Proposals should take the form of a title for the paper and a 250-word abstract, accompanied by a brief biographical note, including institutional affiliation where appropriate. To submit a proposal, or for more information, please write to Dr Sanja Bahun, Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ or, by e-mail, to mythic@essex.ac.uk.

Note: Thanks to the generosity of the Bean Trust, a limited number of bursaries will be made available to speakers contributing specifically to a panel session on the place that William Blake’s work occupies in the field of myth, literature, and the unconscious. If you are interested in applying for one of these bursaries, please indicate this in your proposal.

A Note on the Concept of the Unconscious

Though the concept of the unconscious is fundamental in Freudian psychoanalysis, its hardly identifiable and controllable nature brings a kind of uncertainty to the psychoanalytic discourse. This uncertainty has extremely valuable effects on scientific discourse since it provides dynamism, flexibility and openness which is always desirable in a science with such a diverse object as the human soul.

To complicate matters, the concept of the unconscious is heterogeneous itself. The Freudian definition differs a lot from the definition of the disciples, not to mention modern and postmodern psychoanalysis. The concept of the unconscious was full of contradictions from the beginning; beyond psychoanalysis it was much more problematic. Taking everything into account, two different interpretations emerged in the early history of psychology:

The unconscious is part of the whole personality and it is much more significant than the conscious part (e. g. Freud).

The unconscious is another personality and it is much more significant than the conscious part (e. g. Morton Prince, Frederic Myers).

In the latter sense the unconscious functions as a co-consciousness. Supposedly, it is no accident that the idea of co-consciousness has been associated with mediumistic phenomena (and its scientific investigation) – in these states the co-conscious was especially spectacular:

As shown in the photograph (taken by Sir William Crookes) the medium Florence Cook is in trans-state while her co-conscious, the spirit Katie King, is materializing in the background. Convincing, isn’t it?

Of course, Freud denied the existence of such co-consciousness. Taken into account the evidences of co-consciousness, I share his opinion. The “so-called” multiple personalities should find themselves a more evidence-based diagnostic category…