![Lene Auestad, C](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/Lene_Auestad%2C_C.jpg)
Lene Auestad (born 8 October 1973) is an author and a
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
from the
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...
. She has written on the themes of prejudice, social exclusion and minority rights, and has contributed to public debates on hate speech.
Career
Her book ''Respect, Plurality, and Prejudice'' combined
critical theory
A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from soci ...
with
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
and
psychosocial
The psychosocial approach looks at individuals in the context of the combined influence that psychological factors and the surrounding social environment have on their physical and mental wellness and their ability to function. This approach is ...
studies, examining the underlying unconscious forces and structures that make up the phenomena of
xenophobia
Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
,
Antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
,
Islamophobia
Islamophobia is the fear of, hatred of, or prejudice against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general, especially when seen as a geopolitical force or a source of terrorism.
The scope and precise definition of the term ''Islamophobia'' ...
,
homophobia
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitude (psychology), attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, h ...
and
sexism
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primari ...
. It provides an overview of how social prejudices, and the discrimination and violence that often tend to accompany the latter, come into being. Moreover, It argues that in order to fully understand how a complex phenomenon such as
prejudice
Prejudice can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's per ...
works, we need to alter our traditional Western philosophical understanding of the subject as a supposedly fully rational, autonomous and individual agent. Auestad argues that we need a more situated and relational understanding of subjectivity and the subject, as prejudice and acts of discrimination always take place in a contextualized setting between subjects whose thoughts and actions influence each other.
[
Auestad has also written about the rise of nationalism in European countries, both in terms of its expression in extreme far-right groups and in the context of everyday political language and policy.][
Auestad suggested that psychoanalysis can be used to think about the invisible and subtle processes of power over symbolic representation, for example, in the context of stereotyping and dehumanization, and posed the question of what forces govern the states of affairs that determine who is an 'I' and who is an 'it' in the public sphere.
She founded and runs the international and interdisciplinary conference series Psychoanalysis and Politics http://www.psa-pol.org, which aims to address how contemporary political issues may be analyzed through ]psychoanalytic theory
Psychoanalytic theory is the theory of personality organization and the dynamics of personality development that guides psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology. First laid out by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century, psyc ...
and vice versa – how political phenomena may reflect back on psychoanalytic thinking. The series is interdisciplinary, inviting theoretical contributions and historical, literary or clinical case studies from philosophers, sociologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, group analysts, literary theorists, historians, political scientists, politicians, political activists and others. Perspectives from different psychoanalytic schools are most welcome. Since 2010, conferences have been held in Barcelona, Budapest, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Lisbon, London, Oslo, Paris, Stockholm and Vienna, most often in the rooms of a friendly psychoanalytic society. One of the basic assumptions of the Conferences is that psychoanalysis does not have the luxury to ‘shut itself up’ and should recognize the cultural and political influence that the external world has on it.
Books
*''Traces of Violence and Freedom of Thought'' (co-edited with Amal Treacher Kabesh, Palgrave, 2017)
*''Shared Traumas, Silent, Loss, Public and Private Mourning'' (Karnac, 2017)
*''Respect, Plurality, and Prejudice: A Psychoanalytical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Dynamics of Social Exclusion and Discrimination'' (Karnac, 2015)[Reviews of ''Respect, Plurality, and Prejudice'':
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]
*''Nationalism and the Body Politic: Psychoanalysis and the Rise of Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia'' (Karnac 2014)[Reviews of ''Nationalism and the Body Politic'':
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]
*''Psychoanalysis and Politics: Exclusion and the Politics of Representation'' (Karnac 2012)
*''Handling, frihet, humanitet. Møter med Hannah Arendt'' (Action, Freedom, Humanity. Encounters with Hannah Arendt, co-edited with , Akademika, Trondheim, 2011)
Select articles
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Translated books
Achille Mbembe
Joseph-Achille Mbembe, known as Achille Mbembe (; born 1957), is a Cameroonian historian, political theorist, and public intellectual who is a research professor in history and politics at the Wits Institute for Social and Economy Research at the ...
, ''Nekropolitikk og andre essays.'' Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk, 2021. (From English into Norwegian) Original titles: "Necropolitics", "Decolonizing the university", "Le puits aux fantasmes".
Sara Ahmed
Sara Ahmed (30 August 1969) is a British-Australian writer and scholar whose area of study includes the intersection of feminist theory, lesbian feminism, queer theory, affect theory, critical race theory and postcolonialism. Her seminal wor ...
, ''Gledesdrepende essays''. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk, 2021. (From English into Norwegian) Original titles: "Killing Joy: Feminism and the History of Happiness", "A phenomenology of whiteness", "Affective Economies"
Siri Gullestad/ Bjørn Killingmo, ''The Theory and Practice of Psychoanalytic Therapy. Listening to the Subtext.'' London/ New York: Routledge, 2019. (From Norwegian into English) Original title: ''Underteksten. Psykoanalytisk terapi i praksis.'' Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
Arendt was born ...
, ''Makt og vold. Tre essay.'' Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk, 2017. (From English into Norwegian) Original titles: ''On Violence'', "Mankind and terror", "Is America by Nature a Violent Society?"
Interviews
In English:
About the book, Respect, Plurality, and Prejudice, podcast on New Books in Psychoanalysis 11 September 201
About hate speech: "Fierce online debate brings more prejudice" Alpha Galileo 13 September 2013
About the conference series ''Psychoanalysis and Politics'' "Introducing Psychoanalysis and Politics" in ''Journal of Psycho-Social Studies'' Volume 7 (1) 201
in Swedish:
•Lene Auestad, Iréne Matthis and Diana Mulinari: Vad ska vi med psykoanalysen till? (What do we need psychoanalysis for?) in the journal Fronesis, special issue on the psyche, (psyket)no.44-45 201
in Spanish:
Encuentro en la SEP del grupo Psychoalysis and Politics (The Spanish Psychoanalytical Society's encounter with Psychoanalysis and Politics)
Interview with Lene Auestad and Jonathan Davidoff by the Spanish psychoanalysts Neri Daurella and Eileen Wieland, on the Spanish Society's webpages, (in Spanish
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Auestad, Lene
21st-century Norwegian philosophers
1973 births
Living people
Political philosophers
Women political writers
University of Oslo faculty
Norwegian women philosophers