Traces of Violence and Freedom of Thought

This book examines how people cannot escape being tainted, whether actively engaged or not, by violence in its countless manifestations. The essays encompass a wide range of theoretical resources, methodological approaches and geo-political areas. They describe how images and fragments of traumatic and violent scenarios are transported from one generation's unconscious to that of another, leading to cycles of repetition and retaliation, restricting the freedom to imagine alternatives and inhabit alternative positions. The authors all work within a psychosocial framework by unsettling the boundaries between psyche-social. Four themes are addressed: violence of speech, violence and domination, repetition and violence, and the possibility of reparation or renewal. Due to its theoretical engagements and the case studies provided, this interdisciplinary collection will be of value to postgraduate and undergraduate students of psychology, philosophy, politics and history.

Lene Auestad writes and lectures internationally on ethics, critical theory and psychoanalysis and gained her PhD in Philosophy from the University of Oslo, Norway. She is author of several books including Respect, Plurality, and Prejudice: A Psychoanalytical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Dynamics of Social Exclusion and Discrimination. In 2010 she founded the international and interdisciplinary conference series Psychoanalysis and Politics, which continues to this day, and on which this book is based. 

Amal Treacher Kabesh is Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, at the University of Nottingham, UK. She has published extensively on matters of identity and draws on psychosocial studies and postcolonial theory to deepen her understandings. Her most recent research interests are related to the relationship between the Middle East and the West and has forthcoming monograph entitled: Egyptian Revolutions: Conflict, Repetition and Identification.