Archived Newsletters

ISTP Newsletter
August 2003

Contents:

ISTP Conference in 2003

Latest ISTP Publication Now Available

Other Conferences of Interest

Calls For Papers

This is the third issue of an online version of the ISTP Newsletter.

If you have not renewed your membership, please do so.

Bob Kugelmann, Editor

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:: ISTP Conference in 2003

The 10th Biennial Conference of International Society for Theoretical Psychology was held in Istanbul on 22-27 June 2003
The following was a statement of the aims of the conference: As the 10th biennial meeting of the ISTP, this anniversary conference aims to constitute a facilitating platform for reflections and forward-looking discussions in all important areas in theoretical psychology. Therefore, no particular main theme has been selected by the academic committee for the conference. As rapid transformations of our world, due in particular to globalization and particularization processes, for example, call upon theoretical psychologists for novel and socially relevant understandings, contributions on topics of interest advancing that aim are especially encouraged. These topics include, but are not limited to, cultural critiques; feminist critiques; gender and globalization; metatheoretical reflections; new agendas for the 21st century; politics of psychological knowledge; psychological theory and social practice in complex societies; psychology and interdisciplinarity; sociohistorical insights; and understanding and dealing with diversity. The participation will be in the form of keynote addresses, invited panels, symposia, thematic paper and poster sessions, and a special event. The site of the 2003 conference is at the crossroads of many cultural, sociopolitical and religious worlds. We expect colorful and productive dialogues between the colleagues from all around the world.

For information: http://istp2003.boun.edu.tr/index.html

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:: Latest ISTP Publication Now Available

Theoretical Psychology: Critical Contributions
Niamh Stephenson, H. Lorraine Radtke, Ren Jorna, and Henderikus J. Stam (Eds.)

The latest volume of the Proceedings of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology has now been published by Captus Press of Toronto. For those of you who are attending the ISTP meeting in Istanbul, the volume will be included in your registration package so you do not need to order one separately. For those of you who will not be attending the meeting, it is available from the Captus website at: http://www.captus.com/information/cat_psyc.htm#Theoretical_Psychology:_Critical_Cont

The volume sells for $49 Canadian or US$36.25 (a bargain at 470 pages of tightly packed prose).

Theoretical Psychology consists of a carefully selected, peer reviewed and edited collection of papers presented at the biennial conference of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology held in Calgary, Canada in 2001. Covering vital contemporary issues such as the problems of theory in practice, self and subjectivity, narrative, language, evolutionary theory, reductionism and other philosophical traps, this volume brings you up to date on the theoretical work of a large group of renowned scholars as well as new voices. The authors are international, representing not only psychologists from North America and Europe, but also from Asia and elsewhere in the world.

Each chapter is a well-written and concise representation of a critical and cutting-edge problem contributing to an overall but coherent collection worthy of continued reference for years to come. It is an essential volume for academics, researchers, and practitioners from fields such as the history and philosophy of psychology, critical and social psychology, cognitive and organizational psychology, psychotherapy and counselling, as well as the psychology of health, gender and culture.

:: Other Conferences of Interest

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Contesting conflict, challenging consensus
27-31 August 2003, Bath, England

In the World Heritage City of Bath, England; hosted by the Department of Psychology, University of Bath

Critical psychology takes many forms, and has challenged many fields of psychology. Critical psychologists have confronted numerous boundaries within psychology, and in several fields these challenges have been extremely successful. Critical psychology has infiltrated many mainstream ideas. Is critical psychology becoming part of the mainstream? What are the dangers of this? When we achieve consensus, do we lose energy? Is it time to find new grounds for challenge, create new allegiances? This conference provides an exciting opportunity to take stock of the shifting boundaries and lines of conflict in contemporary critical psychology - to question current and emergent divides. Papers in any area of critical psychology will be considered. The conference themes include the following: 1) Liberating Identities; 2) New Capitalism; New Economy; 3) Political Psychology; 4) Resurfacing the Unconscious; 5) Bodies; 6) Critical Cyborg; 7) Recycling Language.

Please check conference website: http://www.bath.ac.uk/psychology/criticial/

All enquiries to be sent to: critpsy-enquiries@bath.ac.uk

SOCIETY OF AUSTRALASIAN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGISTS CONFERENCE, 2004
The 33rd Annual Meeting of SASP will take place on 15- 18 April, 2004, and will be held at Auckland, New Zealand.

Further information will be available shortly from the conference website:
http://www.psych.aukland.ac.nz/psych/SASP/

:: Calls For Papers

Radical Psychology

Radical Psychology, an online, peer-reviewed journal, welcomes manuscripts for the upcoming issue. We would like to receive papers that address questions, problems, or advance issues in subjects such as: Anti-psychiatry, Qualitative methods, Political psychology, Feminism, Anti-racism, Multiculturalism, Radical clinical theory, Critical theory, Critiques of mainstream psychology, Radical history of psychology, Radical philosophical counseling. Please note the subjects addressed by the journal are not limited to the above mentioned. Send your manuscripts to the Managing Editor at counsel@actcom.co.il

Deadline for submission for the upcoming number is July 1, 2003. Instructions for authors may be seen at the Style Guidelines of Radical Psychology at: http://www.radpsynet.org/journal/Style.html

Discipline Filosofiche

Discipline Filosofiche, a philosophical journal founded by Enzo Melandri, now directed by Stefano Besoli, published by Quodlibet/Macerata at http://www.filosofia.unibo.it/discfil/Welcome.htm and based at the University of Bologna, Italy, will host a special number (2004, XIV, n. 1) devoted to the topic of the philosophical relevance of the concept of practice. The Practice Turn in Philosophy will be edited by Roberto Brigati and Roberto Frega. Below you will find a description both of the project and of the conditions for participation:

In recent decades, the concept of practice has been established in human and social sciences as a new paradigm that is taking the place once held by the concepts of structure, system or event. In philosophy, analogous attempts have been made to establish practice as a leading concept. In different traditions, practice is emerging as a concept capable of renewing epistemology and of opening a new perspective on the concepts of understanding, reason, intelligence and truth.

Practice has been a traditional concern for philosophy. But what distinguishes the recent evolution is a new attention towards the functioning of specific fields of practice as it emerges from the study of human activity, from knowledge production to professional behaviour to aesthetic practices to everyday activity. Most important is the growing importance these studies assign to the role played by the practical dimension in shaping knowledge and thinking.

This trend departs from traditional philosophical ways of dealing with practice, such as the Marxist tradition of studies on praxis, or analytical focus on language as the only relevant practice, and approaches which presuppose a radical separation of theory and practice.

It is not our intention to limit our concern to a unique definition of practice or a single tradition. On the contrary, we intend to give the greatest relevance to the conceptual richness of approaches and traditions. The unifying thread we have chosen is the epistemological focus: we are interested in contributions that consider the field of practices as the starting point for a philosophical investigation on the nature of knowledge, of intelligence, of rationality and of truth. This is, we believe, the only way the notion of practice will be capable of attaining a significant status in the philosophical discourse.

Focus on practice has in fact contributed to challenging epistemological paradigms and theories of rationality centred on a notion of knowledge as being only propositional, explicit and individual, and presupposing the priority of theory over practice and of knowledge over action. The way has now being paved for a consideration of new epistemological theories which do not share the same assumptions. We believe that this process, still in the making, is actually changing the philosophical grammar of knowledge and rationality. Thus, the contributions we would like to host should take into consideration the following topics:

1. The deconstruction of some of the dualisms that have dominated the different traditions in epistemology, like knowledge vs. action, theory vs. practice, propositional vs. non propositional nature of knowledge, pure vs. applied rationality and so on;

2. The analysis of the concept of practice as it is defined in the different traditions, with special attention to the epistemological implications;

3. The construction of an epistemology centred on the notion of practice, in which the dimensions of understanding, thought, knowledge and truth are analysed in view of their functioning conditions inside specific fields of practices.

Contributions taking into consideration the relevance of related concepts like those of tradition, activity or skill are also welcome, as far as their analyses contribute to a better understanding of the problems here listed.

People interested in contributing should send the editors an abstract of about 400 words before June 30th, 2003. Accepted papers will then have to be completed before March 15th, 2004. Max length is 6,000 words. Publication language will be Italian but texts in English, German, French and Spanish are also welcome. They will be translated for publication.

The abstract should be sent by e-mail to the editors:

Roberto Brigati: brigati@philo.unibo.it

Roberto Frega: rofrega@tin.it

Or sent by ordinary mail in two printed copies to Discipline Filosofiche, Dipartimento di Filosofia, Universit di Bologna, via Zamboni 38, - 40126 Bologna (Italia).

Philosophy and Psychopathology

On October 23-25, 2003 the Philosophy Departments of the University of Dayton and the University of Cincinnati will cosponsor a colloquium on Philosophy and Psychopathology. Guest Speakers include:

George Graham, Professor of Philosophy, Wake Forest University (coeditor of Philosophical Psychopathology)

Temple Grandin, Professor of Animal Sciences, Colorado State University, (author of Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports of My Life With Autism)

Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology and Linguistics, Yale University (author of How Children Learn the Meaning of Words)

Submitted papers are solicited on the following or related topics:

• Implications of psychopathological studies -- particularly disordered thought processing -- for philosophical discussions of human reasoning, cognition, social philosophy, or ethics.
• Autism and the "Theory of Mind" debate.
• Clinical, experimental, and neurological models of psychopathology.
• The challenge of psychopathological studies for philosophical assumptions about and models of "human nature".

Papers should be no longer than 12-pages long (approximately 3,000 words), double-spaced, with a maximum reading time of 25 minutes.

Submission deadline: July 1, 2003.

Papers should be sent to:

Peggy DesAutels or Paul Tibbetts
Department of Philosophy
300 College Park Drive
University of Dayton
Dayton, OH 45469-1546

For further information, please contact: peggy.desautels@notes.udayton.edu

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