Next week (late September 2013), we commence the first phase of the seminar on feminism. Below you will find a brief summary of the statement again that was put to the various women participating:
‘What is feminism about in Jungian parlance? Does a theoretical collection of ideas that includes such a concept as the ‘anima’ have anything to contribute to contemporary international conversations about feminism?
We assume that an analysis of how Jungian theorists think about the female gender is crucial; important notions of individuality arise from feminist themes of alterity and analysis of the distinct ways humans are embedded in the real world. Similarly Jung’s ideas of individuation are crucial to the theories and practice of the analyst or Jungian commentator in the real application to people delving into living solutions.’
We approached various feminists on the IAJS list and asked for short comment – 300-500 words – on this issue.
We have been fortunate in having the following women, all of them either clinicians, and/or theoreticians and academics who are also IAJS members, and who take a variety of positions in response to this broad statement (you might care to look at their works in anticipation):
Robin McCoy Brooks is a Jungian psychoanalyst practicing in Seattle, Washington USA and one of the founding members of the New School for Analytical Psychology www.nsanpsy.com .
Cheryl Fuller (PhD): Cheryl is a clinical psychologist and Jungian psychotherapist in private practice on the coast of Maine. She has written about Medea and feminism. Presently her research is in fat studies, weight bias, women’s bodies, and the so-called war on obesity as a moral panic and cultural complex.
Frances Gray (PhD) is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy in the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics at the University of Queensland, Australia. Dr Gray is author of ‘Jung, Irigaray, Individuation: Philosophy, Analytical Psychology, and the Question of the Feminine’ [Routledge 2007] and more recently, ‘Cartesian Philosophy and the Flesh: Reflections on incarnation in analytical psychology’ [Routledge 2013].
Elizabeth Nelson (PhD) is Core Faculty and Dissertation Policy Director at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is co-author of The Art of Inquiry (Spring, 2005) and author of Psyche’s Knife (Chiron, 2012) in which she “stuck to the image” of the knife in the tale of Eros and Psyche to challenge traditional notions of gender, love, and power.
Ginette Paris, (PhD) is core faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is the author of several books, the most recent: Wisdom of the Psyche: Depth Psychology after Neuroscience (Routledge 2010) and Heartbreak: New Approaches to Healing (Mill City Press 2011), conjoin depth psychology with insights from neuroscience. She teaches and lectures in Jungian approaches, as well as the theory and practice of Archetypal Psychology
Susan Rowland (PhD) is Chair of MA Engaged Humanities at Pacifica Graduate Institute and was formerly Professor of English and Jungian Studies in London. She is author of several books, including JUNG: A FEMINIST REVISION, and is currently working on archetypes in women’s detective fiction as well as gender in The Red Book.
Moderator: Leslie Gardner (PhD) recently published ‘Rhetorical Investigations: GB Vico and CG Jung’ (Routledge 2013), and co-edited a volume with Luke Hockley, ‘House: the wounded healer on television’ (Routledge 2010); she is author of a chapter in ‘Jung and Science’ edited by Raya Jones (Routledge 2014 upcoming). Leslie is a graduate of University of Essex ‘Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies’, and runs an international literary agency in London.