Dear everyone,

I am writing to promote the forthcoming Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies conference “Complexity, Creativity and Action” in Washington DC, June 22-25 2017, and want to do so in the context of recent political events.

See Call for Papers attached, deadline EXTENDED to January 31 2017.

Many of us feel afflicted by a case of the DTs (I have been searching for a way to refer to the US President Elect), and I get a sense of horror, despair and desire for it all to go away in friends, colleagues and students.

At some point, individual and collective psyches will rally and people will feel motivated to action on many levels.

I would like to suggest that the IAJS conference in South Africa in 2017 AND the JSSS conference in Washington DC (it’s in Washington DC!) is an opportunity for political action via research that could be very important to us, not just in professional lives but also in terms of mental health. 

Jungian oriented research is a positive delve into Dionysian breaking of barriers between scholar and activist, clinician and private person, knowledge and being, individuating individual psyche and the wounded collective psyche. Whether such research is explicitly on the political arena and/or social action, it is – we know from the collective unconscious and complexity evolution – part of complex adaptive systems that will have unpredictable, creative effects on the larger collective.

Jungian research, ethical, consciously aware of the shadow, devoted as Jung was to healing modernity (which is not to say that he always got it right), IS PART OF THE SOLUTION – IT IS A WAY OF COMBATTING THE TERRIBLE UNCONSCIOUS brutality promised by the DTs.

I’m going to Washington DC next June to be with a group of people dreaming research into a better world – will you come too?

Susan Rowland
(current President JSSS; former Chair IAJS – honored to be both!)

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Download the CFP PDF here >>> call-for-papers-november27-1

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Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies

15^th Conference of Research in Jung and Analytical Psychology 

Complexity, Creativity, and Action 

Key Bridge Marriott, Arlington Virginia

Thursday evening June 22 — Sunday evening, June 25, 2017

 

We invite you to participate in a multidisciplinary gathering of scholars exploring complexity, creativity, and action in the context of Jungian and/or post-Jungian ideas and concepts.

The conference will be held at the Key Bridge Marriott, which is located directly across the Potomac River from Washington D.C. and the Georgetown University campus.

Program Committee: Alexandra Fidyk, Sukey Fontelieu, Luke Hockley, Inez Martinez, Robert Mitchell, Elizabeth Nelson, Susan Rowland, Rinda West, Susan Wyatt

Keynote Speaker:       Joe Cambray, Ph.D.

Call for Proposals:

In Volume 8 of the Collected Works, Jung offers a model of psyche that is complex, dynamic, and creative. Sherry Salman writes in the Cambridge Companion to Jung: “For Jung, the psyche was a many-splendored thing: fluid, multi-dimensional, alive, and capable of creative development. Having been Assistant Director of a psychiatric hospital, Jung was no stranger to disease, psychosis, and inertia. But he possessed a love for the orderly chaos of the psyche and a trust in its integrity” (The Creative Psyche: Jung’s Major Contributions (2008, p. 52)). In recent years, major advances in the development of complexity and dynamical systems theory have provided new perspectives for understanding Jung’s model. Jung himself would have welcomed the insights that they offer. “Difficulties must inevitable arise whenever the mind launches forth boldly into the unknown and invisible…. It is not a question of asserting anything, but of constructing a model which opens up a promising and useful field of inquiry. (CW 8, para. 381).

Theories of complexity and dynamic systems have found that the greatest potential for change is at system states far from equilibrium. In Living at the Edge of Chaos: Complex Systems in Culture and Psyche (2012), Helene Schulman explores the potential for creativity in living at these states of disequilibrium. Taking action in these turbulent edges where outcomes are difficult to predict requires reflection and humility as well as creativity. This conference seeks to explore complexity and/or creativity as well as the challenges of living, researching, and acting at the chaotic edges of complex systems. Possible areas of inquiry include:

• Exploring the writings of Jung and/or post Jungians about the creativity of psyche.
• Exploring how contemporary paradigms in complexity and dynamic systems theory create new possibilities for understanding Jungian perspectives on human consciousness, symbolic systems, and psychological development.
• Offering scholarly frameworks for action based on Jungian and/or post-Jungian ideas.
• Maintaining psychic balance within complex and continually changing personal and social environments.
• Bringing multiple perspectives to creative engagement with complex psychic systems.
• Revitalizing psychic systems that have been marginalized or lost energy.
• Translating creativity into ethical action.
• Ways that complexity theory opens up psychological understanding of societal problems with implications for responsible political action.
• Reconceptions of how to educate students to flourish within complex dynamical systems.
• Complexity and creativity in depth psychology.
• Considering the complexity in diversity in Jungian and clinical theory and practice.
• Literature and art that contribute to understanding of complex dynamic systems in a Jungian context.
• Arts based research and creative practice that make use of, illuminate, or contribute to Jungian or post Jungian concepts and ideas.
• Applications of complexity theory to clinical work.
• Bringing in the margins to generate creativity in Jungian discourse.
• Research designs that explore psyche within the context of complex dynamical systems.
• Creative disruption of the hegemony of privileged or taken for granted ways of knowing and research methods.

This list is intended only as suggested entry points into the conference theme. Presentations that contemplate complexity and/or creativity from whatever entry point are welcome.

The Program committee invites submissions for single or multi-authored scholarly papers, panels with three or more presenters, roundtables (recommended for presenters that want to receive feedback on work in progress or want to engage in in-depth discussion about their topic), experiential workshops, artistic presentation, and creative practice. We invite you to submit a proposal (350 words maximum), abstract (50 words) and biographical note (50 words) to sjw.jsss@gmail.com by January 31, 2017. . All submissions will be acknowledged. We will review your submission and notify you by February 28, 2017. Details of the host site and conference registration are available through the JSSS website: www.jungiansociety.org.

Proposal Format

Your proposal should include:

Full name (including preferred title)

Email address

Institutional affiliations (universities and/or professional bodies)

Preferred presentation format (the committee may reallocate presentation formats other than those requested).

• Paper (20 minutes–discussion time will be added).
• Panel (20 minutes for each presenter–discussion time will be added).
• Roundtable (30 minutes with 10-15 minute presentation and discussion time included). Note that a/v will not be available for this format.
• Experiential workshop (60 or 90 minutes).
• Creative Practice

Title of Presentation

Proposal

350 words maximum for papers, panels, and roundtables. 500 words maximum for workshops and creative practice.

Abstract

50 words maximum for inclusion in the conference program.

Biography (with optional photo)

50 words maximum for inclusion in the conference program