segunda-feira, 22 de dezembro de 2008

About the book in preparation ARCHAEOLOGY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

Vienna. Freud's house; a detail. Photo Gonçalo L. Velho.


As soon as I have launched the idea, I had several messages from different colleagues. As I was abroad in Leicester (Material Worlds conference) and in TAG 08 Southampton, I still need to organize all that information and to answer to many questions.
Probably the best way will be for me to develop the idea of the book in a short text, but one longer than the one that was published in the WAC list and in other lists, in order for the authors to see better what I have in my mind.
I am also waiting for an answer from a colleague of the area of psychoanalysis, that I have contacted, in order to eventually co-edit the book with me.
The difficulty is obviously the fact that both archaeology and psychoanalysis have many “schools” and perspectives and we need to make a coherent book and not something excessively heterogeneous... or even less a series of books...although the diversity of the book obviously may be in itself positive.
For me, the psychoanalytic inspiration, if taken as a doxa, is negative: we need to develop it into new approaches, getting inspiration from it. Just that: inspiration. The same with the theoretical “fathers” of archaeology. That makes everything more difficult, but it is the only reason for the book - its interest and opportunity now.
Particular chapters may be more historical (around the history of the two disciplines), but part of that job was already well done by my colleague and friend Julian Thomas in his book “Archaeology and Modernity” (Routledge, London, 2004). Or they may be more philosophical, more theoretical. They may be conceived from the experience of the archaeologist or, alternatively, from the experience of the psychoanalyst. But each needs to be grounded in a very strong basis, in a matured argument, whatever it may be. Perhaps the best way will be for each proposed author to develop his/her idea in an abstract of the proposed chapter and send it to my e-mail: vojorge@clix.pt
Thanks to all for your collaboration.
Happy Christmas!

VOJ



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