Library of Social Science Symposium on the Psychological Interpretation of War

January 14-17, 2004, New York City

Anthony Giddens has observed that the failure of scholars to come to terms with the meaning of violence and war constitutes “one of the most extraordinary blank spots in social theory in the twentieth century.”  This is an astonishing lacuna.  War is a central institution in the history of civilization. World War I and World War II were the defining events of the 20th century.  Just when it seemed that we were moving toward a globalized existence, we have been thrown once again into a world dominated by ideologies of violence.War has caused monumental devastation and suffering. Yet, despite its awful consequences, the institution of warfare is taken for granted as a fact of life. What is the nature of those desires and anxieties that fuel enthusiasm for war, compelling us to embrace it in spite of the invariable misery it creates and the disillusionment that follows in its wake?

The symposium will be both a workshop and a seminar, gathering scholars and professionals from the fields of psychology, psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, literature, military studies and religious studies to address the meaning and consequences of the human propensity to die and kill in the name of political and religious ideologies.

The following questions will serve a springboard for analyzing violence, war, genocide, terrorism, and hatred as socially organized phenomena:

(1) What psychological and cultural mechanisms underlie socially sanctioned, collective forms of violence, transforming killing into a moral act?

(2) What is the relationship between violence and “sacrifice?” Why are human beings willing to die in the name of reified objects with which they identify

 

Below is the final schedule for the upcoming Symposium.

 

Schedule

 

January 14 (Wednesday)

 

Evening

 

5:00    Meet at Pan-American Hotel, 79-00 Queens Boulevard, Elmhurst, NY 11373. (800-937-7374).

For those who are not staying at the symposium hotel, please Jay Bernstein at 718-393-1104 (you will get an answer machine, but we will pick up or call you back) a few days before the conference. We will give you instructions on getting here.

 

6:00    Banquet at 86 Seafood Restaurant, 86-22 Broadway, Elmhurst, NY 11373(Telephone: 718-639-4500).

 

January 15 (Thursday)

 

All sessions will be held at the office of Dr. Koenigsberg.

 

Morning

 

9:00    Opening remarks by Jay Bernstein (Library of Social Science), Bob Hall and Richard Koenigsberg (Library of Social Science)

 

9:45     Ron Leifer, M.D., Psychiatrist in Private Practice, Ithaca, New York, “The Roots of War”

 

10:45  Juha Siltala, Ph.D., Professor of Finnish History, Helsinki University, “A Nation Reborn Out of Young Blood: Sacrificial Fantasies in the Finnish Civil War, 1917-1918”

 

11:45 Break for Lunch

 

Afternoon

 

2:00    Eelco Runia, Ph. D., Research Fellow, Groningen University, Netherlands,“Vertigo”

 

3:30    Ana Carden-Coyne, Ph.D., Lecturer, Centre for the Cultural History of War,University of Manchester, “American Guts and Military Manhood”

 

 

January 16 (Friday)

 

 Morning

 

9:00    Open discussion

 

9:45    James L. Kimble, Ph. D., Department of Communications, George Mason University, “Toward a Grammar of Emnification: Images of the Enemy inU. S. Domestic Propaganda, 1942-1945”

 

10:45 Richard A. Koenigsberg, Ph. D., Director, Library of Social Science, “Killing and Dying for Nations: The Psychology of War and Genocide”

 

11:45 Break for Lunch

 

Afternoon

 

2:00    James E. Waller, Ph. D., Chair and Professor of Psychology, Whitworth College, “Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing”

 

3:00    Allen MacNeill, Dept. of Biology, Cornell University, “Religion and Warfare: A Coevolutionary Spiral”

 

 

January 17 (Saturday)

 

Morning

 

9:00    Open discussion

 

9:45    Ranen Omer-Sherman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of English and Jewish Studies, University of Miami, author, Diaspora and Zionism in Jewish American Literature, “Childhood Dreams and Heroic-Nationalism: The Case of Ilan Mossinzion’s The Wooden Gun”

 

10:45  Olek Netzer, Ph.D., Researcher in Applied Behavioral Science, Kibbutz Barkai, “The Virus of Dehumanization: Deciphering the Code of Destructive Behavior in Inter-Group Conflict”

 

11:45 Break for Lunch

 

2:00    Joseph W. H. Lough, Ph. D., Professor of History, Sacramento City College,“Weber and the Persistence of Religion”

 

3:00    Hector N. Qirko, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University ofTennessee, “Non-kin Altruism and the Manipulation of Kinship-Recognition Cues in Religious, Military, and Terrorist Institutions”

 

Dr. Brian Ferguson of the Anthropology Department at Rutgers University will participate in the symposium as a discussant.