Old Email Archive

digest 2005-08-10 #001.txt

litsci-l-digest       Wednesday, August 10 2005       Volume 01 : Number
113



In this issue:

     Adjunct position in literature at RPI--applications sought
     Awakening from the Nightmare of History
     The Soldier as Sacrificial Victim

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Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2005 00:40:22 +0000
From: "Carol Colatrella" 
Subject: Adjunct position in literature at RPI--applications sought

Adjunct sought by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for fall 2005 term to
teach one or two literature electives (Utopian Literature and/or
Literature
and Science), $4000 per section, 25 students per section. Minimum
requirements: evidence of excellence in teaching; ABD and demonstrable
expertise in the subject matter (dissertation and/or publications),
Ph.D.
preferred. Possibility of renewal to teach other lower- and upper-level
literature courses. Please send resume to Tracy Paul at
pault@rpi.edu or 518-276-2928.


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Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2005 12:36:36 -0400
From: "Orion Anderson" 
Subject: Awakening from the Nightmare of History

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Coming Soon: Listserv on the "Psychological Interpretation of Ideology,
Culture and History." For further information contact Orion Anderson at
libraryofsocialscience@earthlink.net 
  _____ 

AWAKENING FROM THE NIGHTMARE OF HISTORY:
Psychological Interpretation of War and Genocide

Richard Koenigsberg

A character in James Joyce's novel Ulysses said that "history is a =
nightmare
from which I am trying to awake." We might do well to take literally the
idea of "history as a nightmare." In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud
provided a method for analyzing the dreams of individuals. I have =
developed
a method for analyzing collective dreaming. I interpret elements of =
culture
as manifestations of shared fantasy--as if a dream that many people are
having at the same time. The psychological interpretation of culture
revolves around delineating the nature and shape of those desires, =
conflicts
and fantasies that give rise to and are articulated through ideologies =
and
social institutions.
  _____ 

The complete paper by Richard A. Koenigsberg is available for the first
=
time
as an on-line publication.

To read: AWAKENING FROM THE NIGHTMARE OF HISTORY: Psychological
Interpretation of War and Genocide
  =
PLEASE
CLICK HERE or visit:
 

http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/awakening.htm 

  _____ 


NATIONS AND THE FANTASY OF IMMORTALITY

The idea of omnipotent bodies politic is a dream that people experience
while they are awake. Nations constitute a shared fantasy of =
immortality.
The dream of the nation may at times seem to be a benign, beautiful =
dream,
fantasy of oneness with one's beloved country. However, this dream
transmogrifies into a nightmare at the moment when people begin to doubt
=
the
omnipotence of their nation.

Wars come into being in order to demonstrate--test the proposition--that
one's nation is all-powerful. Nations bring forth or manifest power =
through
their capacity to kill and bring about death, that is, as a result of =
their
willingness to sacrifice the lives of human beings. As long as there are
people who are in the process of "dying for the country," we are =
persuaded
that nations are real.



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Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 13:02:57 -0400
From: "Orion Anderson" 
Subject: The Soldier as Sacrificial Victim

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Coming Soon: Listserv on the "Psychological Interpretation of War, =
Genocide
and Terrorism." For further information contact Orion Anderson at

libraryofsocialscience@earthlink.net 


  _____ 

THE SOLDIER AS SACRIFICIAL VICTIM
Richard Koenigsberg

"Hypocrisy lies at the heart of the institution of warfare. People plug
=
into
the fantasy of national power and glory. They embrace war as a righteous
struggle between good and evil. However, most people do not wish to be =
put
in harm's way. War is more enjoyable when the fighting is delegated to
someone else. The soldier is revered and worshipped because he takes the
sacrificial burden upon himself. He kills, suffers and dies for all of =
us."



  _____ 

The complete paper by Richard A. Koenigsberg is available for the first
=
time
as an on-line publication.

To read: THE SOLDIER AS SACRIFICIAL VICTIM: Awakening from the Nightmare
=
of
History

PLEASE
=

CLICK HERE or visit:
 =
=

http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/soldier_nightmare.htm 



  _____ 

Awakening from the Nightmare

What would it mean to "awaken from the nightmare of history?" In the =
first
place, the ability to awaken means recognizing that we already exist as
=
if
in the midst of a bad dream--one that is occurring within the space of
reality or waking life. Many aspects of political history possess the
characteristics of a nightmare. One need only turn on the television set
=
or
read today's newspaper to apprehend the "waking nightmare" to which I =
refer.

 The fact that one is present within "reality" or awake does not mean,
however, that one is not dreaming. It is a mistake to equate "reality" =
with
that which is real. War, I suggest, may be conceived as a shared or
collective fantasy, like a bad dream that many people are having at the
=
same
time. What is the nature of the shared fantasy that is the source of the
ideology of war?



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End of litsci-l-digest V1 #113
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