Events and Seminars
| Event | : | Humans: A Monstrous History, Monsters and the Politics of Projection |
|---|---|---|
| Venue | : | Online |
| Date | : | 16/09/2025 |
| Duration | : | 8:15 - 9:45pm BST |
| Extra Info | : | With Dr Surekha Davies, chaired by David Morgan Dr Surekha Davies explores how societies define the human by constructing the monstrous. From a political-psychoanalytic perspective, monsters function as projections figures onto which we displace what cannot be tolerated in ourselves: vulnerability, aggression, dependency, or difference. This process sustains social cohesion through splitting, idealisation, and scapegoating. Davies traces how race, gender, and nation are built on such psychic defences—what Klein might call the paranoid-schizoid position—where the ‘Other’ is held responsible for internal conflict. As the book moves through empires, colonialism, and corporate capitalism, we see how monstrosity becomes a tool of control: a way of managing anxiety by externalising threat. Yet Davies also gestures toward a reparative project. If monstrosity reveals the unconscious of power, then recognising our projections opens the possibility for integration, reparation, and political transformation. This is not just a history of monsters, but of the psychic mechanisms that underwrite dehumanisation—and how we might begin to undo them. |
| Organised By | : | The Institute of Psychoanalysis |
| Web Link | : | https://psychoanalysis.org.uk/civicrm-event/1838 |