I’m pleased to invite readers of the LSS Newsletter to participate in a MASTERCLASS with Dr. Koenigsberg sponsored by the Zizekian Institute (David Gabbard) on November 8, 2017 at 7pm.

Koenigsberg will present a psychoanalytic theory of culture, showing how ideologies allow unconscious desires and fantasies to make their way into the “external” world. Scroll down for a description of the MASTERCLASS.

Registration for the MASTERCLASS is now available. Simply click the button directly below. You will be taken to a registration page: enter your name and email address to hold a place. Space is limited, please register now, even if you are not absolutely sure you can be present the day of the event.

Please register now to hold your place.

Click here to learn more about Richard Koenigsberg.

Norman O. Brown Slavoj Žižek Richard Koenigsberg

In Sublime Object of Ideology (1989) and Mapping Ideology (2012)—and other books and articles—Slavoj Žižek states that ideology is not a dream-like illusion that we build to “escape insupportable reality,” rather is a “fantasy-construction which serves as a support for our reality itself.” In The Plague of Fantasies (2009), Žižek writes that the “unconscious mind—operating through fantasy—makes us susceptible to ideology.” Ideology may be viewed as a “waking dream,” acting upon us from the outside, but exerting its hold because it resonates with unconscious desires, fantasies and conflicts.

In Hitler’s Ideology: A Study in Psychoanalytic Sociology (1975) and The Psychoanalysis of Racism, Revolution and Nationalism (2011)—Richard Koenigsberg theorizes that ideologies exist as a modus operandi for the expression of fantasies that are shared by members of a population. Ideologies transform dimensions of psychic experience into elements of culture. Ideologies—like “funnels”—draw forth energy bound to unconscious fantasies—making this energy available for reality-oriented action. Political history enacts shared unconscious fantasies—through the vehicle of ideology.