Hi Everyone! I hope you all are having a beautiful spring. It’s gorgeous here in Sweden! The sun is shining, the air is crisp and fresh, and I’m busy working away. I just handed in the final manuscript for the book Rendering Unconscious: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Politics & Poetry, which is now in press and will be available from Trapart Books this April! That book was 2 years in the making, so it’s a great joy to almost have it out in the world. All the contributions are top notch, and it’s wrapped in the gorgeous artwork of Alison Blickle. Take a look!
Here’s what the publisher has to say:
“In times of crisis, one needs to stop and ask, ‘How did we get here?’ Our contemporary chaos is the result of a society built upon pervasive systems of oppression, discrimination and violence that run deeper and reach further than most understand or care to realize. These draconian systems have been fundamental to many aspects of our lives, and we seem to have gradually allowed them more power. However, our foundation is not solid; it is fractured and collapsing – if we allow that. We need to start applying new models of interpretation and analysis to the deep-rooted problems at hand.
Rendering Unconscious brings together international scholars, psychoanalysts, psychologists, philosophers, researchers, writers and poets; reflecting on current events, politics, the state of mental health care, the arts, literature, mythology, and the cultural climate; thoughtfully evaluating this moment of crisis, its implications, wide-ranging effects, and the social structures that have brought us to this point of urgency.
Hate speech, Internet stalking, virtual violence, the horde mentality of the alt-right, systematic racism, the psychology of rioting, the theater of violence, fake news, the power of disability, erotic transference and counter-transference, the economics of libido, Eros and the death drive, fascist narratives, psychoanalytic formation as resistance, surrealism and sexuality, traversing genders, and colonial counterviolence are but a few of the topics addressed in this thought-provoking and inspiring volume.
Contributions by Vanessa Sinclair, Gavriel Reisner, Alison Annunziata, Kendalle Aubra, Gerald Sand, Tanya White-Davis & Anu Kotay, Luce deLire, Jason Haaf, Simon Critchley & Brad Evans, Marc Strauss, Chiara Bottici, Manya Steinkoler, Emma Lieber, Damien Patrick Williams, Shara Hardeson, Jill Gentile, Angelo Villa, Gabriela Costardi, Jamieson Webster, Sergio Benvenuto, Craig Slee, Álvaro D. Moreira, David Lichtenstein, Julie Fotheringham, John Dall’aglio, Matthew Oyer, Jessica Datema, Olga Cox Cameron, Katie Ebbitt, Juliana Portilho, Trevor Pederson, Elisabeth Punzi & Per-Magnus Johansson, Meredith Friedson, Steven Reisner, Léa Silveira, Patrick Scanlon, Júlio Mendes Rodrigo, Daniel Deweese, Julie Futrell, Gregory J. Stevens, Benjamin Y. Fong, Katy Bohinc, Wayne Wapeemukwa, Patricia Gherovici & Cassandra Seltman, Marie Brown, Buffy Cain, Claire-Madeline Culkin, Andrew Daul, Germ Lynn, Adel Souto, and paul aster stone-tsao.
480 pages, 148 x 210 mm, perfect-bound.
Vanessa Sinclair, Psy.D. is an American psychoanalyst, based in Stockholm, who sees clients internationally. She is the author of Switching Mirrors (2016), and co-editor of On Psychoanalysis and Violence: Contemporary Lacanian Perspectives (2018) with Dr. Manya Steinkoler. Dr. Sinclair also hosts the Rendering Unconscious podcast, addressing the state of psychoanalysis and mental health care, politics, the arts, culture and current events. She is a founding member of Das Unbehagen: A Free Association for Psychoanalysis, and arranges psychoanalytic conferences internationally.
As you know, Rendering Unconscious is also a podcast! It developed out of the book, with the same idea in mind. This year has been magnificent for the podcast, which celebrated its one year anniversary in January. Guests this year have included psychoanalyst & professor Dany Nobus, dancer & psychoanalyst Julie Fotheringham, senior lecturer Jacob Johansson, scholar Isabel Millar, psychoanalyst Ray O’Neill, professor emeritus Walter Davis, psychoanalytic scholar Alireza Taheri, poet & therapist Katie Ebbitt, writer Jason Haaf, professor Todd McGowan, and psychoanalyst Trevor Pederson, several of whom are also contributors to Rendering Unconscious, the book!
Rendering Unconscious Podcast posts on Spotify, iTunes, SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo & more! Links to all these sites can be found at www.renderingunconscious.org/about
I was recently in Thailand and created several films to accompany podcast episodes using footage shot during my adventures there. Check those out at YouTube & Vimeo.
Carl and I had our first exhibition together at Galleri Granen in January, which was a hit and received a wonderful review in the Swedish paper. You can see a recording of our live performance opening night!
Now... there is so much coming up ahead!
In May, I am handing in the manuscript for my book Scansion in Psychoanalysis & Art: the Cut in Creation to be published by Routledge later this year.
Carl’s documentary on Kenneth Anger CINEMAGICIAN world premiere’s on April 12 at Husets Biograf, Copenhagen!
Speakers: 1 Carlos Abler - The Questions We Ask our Bodies are Answered by the Gods: Mimetic Techniques & Existential Alchemies in Avant-garde Performance & Therapies 2 Carl Abrahamsson - Literchoor, Kulchur and a Damned Fine Friendship: on the Symbiosis of Ezra Pound and James Laughlin 3 Tom Banger & Koshka - Investigating Initiation: Temple ov Psychick Youth, North America 4 Blanche Barton - The Roots of Modern Satanism: Profane, Profound and Sundry 5 Katy Bohinc - Poetry as Magic 6 Ethan Clarke - Futurism & Social Consciousness 7 Alexander Cummins - Dirt Astrology: Geomancy & the Earthly Zeitgeist 8 John Cussans - Secret Committees, Collective Beings & the Revolutionary Egregore 9 Jesse Hathaway Diaz - Apocalypti/c/orazon 10 Ugo Dossi - Oracles in Automatic Drawing 11 Phillip English - Galdr: On Runes, Chant & Trauma 12 Kadmus - True to the Earth and a Pagan Conception of the Self 13 Langston Kahn - Shades and Shadows: How Our Unresolved Ancestors and Denied Selves Hold the Keys to Our Collective Liberation 14 Dorota Kownacka-Rogulska - Legacy of Antiquity in Texts of Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Ancient Origin of Human Future and Moment of Present Contribution. 15 Demetrius Lacroix - Spirituality as a Response to Fighting Social Inequality, featuring Marie Laveau & Mambo Ciceal Faitiman 16 Valya Dudycz Lupescu & Stephen H. Segal - Re-Membering the Weird 17 Simon Magus - The Fin-de-siecle Magical Aesthetic of Austin Osman Spare: Siderealism, Atavism, Automatism, Occultism. 18 Katrina Makkouk - Pound's Occultism: the Development of Automatic Writing & Occult Philosophy in the Pisan Cantos 19 Stephanie Moran & Anna Sebastian - Mantic Staining: Divinatory Paintings of Ithell Colquhoun 20 Kasper Ostrup - Myths of the Near Future: Radicalising Body and Mind 21 Aria Michaels Paradise - As Within, So Without. The Fin-de-siecle Zeitgeist 22 Elisabeth Punzi & Per Magnus Johansson - Psychoanalysis and the Freedom of Thought; Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) 23 Siegfried de Rachewiltz - Ezra Pound & the Genius Loci of the Brunnenburg 24 Charlotte Rodgers - Spiritual Evolution; For the Masses or for the Few? 25 Emily Schumacher - Spell in Craft: the Weaving and Forging of a Magical Tradition in Folk & Fairy Tales
26 Vanessa Sinclair - The Colonial Crusade against Magical Thinking 27 Hans-Peter Söder - True Lies: Towards a Renewal of Mythic Thinking
Following which, we head to Morocco to spend a week with the Master Musicians of Jajouka! Then it’s my birthday, July 1, and following that we have another art exhibition opening at the Museum of Pornography in Art, Zurich. More on that soon!
Suffice to say, all of this is keeping me busy! These opportunities are incredible, and I look forward to each and every one. However, you may not see much of me on social media or even via newsletter until the summer when I’m through this push of events/ work. If you’d like to stay in closer touch, the best place to find me is always PatreonwhereI continually post works in progress, writing, art, projects, photos, etc. I love having a closer knit community to share and chat with, rather than what feels like the expansive void of social media at large. So if you'd like to reach me, feel free to join Patreon or just simply send me an email!
