The editors of the book:
"Nature and its Discontents from Virgin Land to Disney World:
Reinterpretations of Freud's Civilization Thesis in the America(s) of
Yesterday and Today"
to be published by Editions Rodopi, a major European/American Publishing
House, in late 2000, are still looking for substantial contributions.
The general idea of these essays should go along with the following "liner
notes:"
With the publication in English in 1930 of civilization and its Discontents
and its thesis that instinct -- and, ultimately: nature -- had been and
must be forever subordinated in order that civilization might thrive and
endure, Freud
contributed what some contemporaries saw to the central debate of his era
-- a debate which had long preoccupied both official American pundits and
the American populace at large. At the beginning of the new millenium,
evidence abounds
that an American debate still rages over the meaning of "nature," the
rightful weight of instinct, and the status of civilization. The Millenium
itself has appeared in popular and official discourses as an appropriate
marker of an age in which "nature" is close to the edge of radical
extinction and has also become more and more unreliable as a paradigm for
representation and debate. At the same time, the contemporary tailoring of
"nature" to postmodern needs and
expectations inevitably reveals the conceptual difficulty of any possible,
simple opposition between nature and culture as if they were clearly
distinguishable domains.
If "nature," then, can clearly be seen as a discursive concept, it may also
be a timeless concept insofar that it has been shaped, created, and used at
all times. Every epoch, age and era had "its own nature," with myth,
history and
ideology as its dominant shaping forces. From the Frontier to Cyberia,
nature has been suffering the "agony of the real," resurfacing in
discursive strategies and demonstrating a powerful impact on American
society, culture and
self-definition.
The editors of this collection invite contributions which "speak critically
of the natural" and examine this American debate in the many guises it has
assumed over the last century. We welcome papers which explore the impact
of major critical approaches, psychoanalytical concepts, and postmodern
theorizing on popular and official expressions of civilization (Literature,
Art, Film, etc.) as repression of "nature" and the concomitant "return of
the Real" such repression may have appeared to generate.
Send short abstracts (200-500 words) or complete papers to
Bernd.Herzogenrath@post.rwth-aachen.de
DEADLINE: April 15, 2000!!!!!!!!!!!!
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