Why do symbols have such a powerful influence on human beings?
This question lies at the heart of both psychoanalysis and anthropology. In his seminal paper on ‘The Effectiveness of Symbols’, the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss compared the healing practices of shamans and psychoanalysts in terms of the structuring effects of symbol and language on the body.Lévi-Strauss opened up new ways of thinking about the symbolic dimension of human life, offering a subtle reformulation of the Freudian unconscious and putting forward a theory of symbolic function that continues to resonate within both fields.
This conference brings together eminent speakers from the fields of psychoanalysis and anthropology to reflect on Lévi-Strauss’ paper and its influence, and to discuss symbolic effectiveness in their own research and practice.
SPEAKERS AND TITLES
Exclusion, Unsustainability and the Determinations of the Symbolic
Henrietta Moore (social anthropologist and Director of the Institute for Global Prosperity and Chair in Philosophy, Culture and Design at UCL)
Lévi-Strauss and the Poetics of the Unconscious
Boris Wiseman (Associate Professor, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Copenhagen)
Symbol and Symbolic Function
Darian Leader (psychoanalyst and author)
Therapeutic Emplotment in the Native American Church
Joseph Calabrese (medical anthropologist, UCL)
More info here.
