NLS Congress 2020 – CALL FOR PAPERS!

Interpretation: From Truth to Event

Dear Colleagues,
 
Urgent in Tel Aviv was the logical follow-up to the preceding Congresses on the Unconscious and Transference, and Ghent will come in their wake: Interpretation: From Truth to Event.
 
Our colleagues in the Kring are preparing the 2020 Congress with the same enthusiasm that we encountered last year in Tel Aviv.
 
We have set up a vibrant collaboration between the Congress Organizing Committee in Ghent and the Executive Committee of the NLS. I have gone there several times and am going back in the coming weeks.
 
Els Van Compernolle and the Executive Committee have established the Organizing Committee team:

• Els Van Compernolle and myself who will lead the team.
• Katrien Mortier, Treasurer of the Kring who does meticulous and precise work in this area.
• Christel Van den Eeden, Vice-President of the Kring since January, who is reliable and precise and will hold a central role in the communication with the NLS, with distributing information, etc.
• Glenn Strubbe, who was Vice-President of the Kring until this past December.
• Peter Decuyper, who is reliable and active in the Kring.
• Joachim Cauwe, who has just become a member of the Kring and who is committed, oriented and organized; he will hold a central role dealing with logistics.
• Abe Geldhof, who is also committed, and who has the precious role of mobilizing the young Congress participants.
• Sam Calmeyn, a member of the Kring who is devoted and enthusiastic about helping out.
• Lieven Jonckheere, who will take care of the simultaneous translation.

More meetings have been scheduled between now and next June. Els showed me the magnificent Vooruit Palace where we will be welcomed in Ghent. You will find out more about this in the weeks to come. In short, the Congress promises to be magnificent. I know this
– because our colleagues on the Executive Committee are actively participating in the Knottings seminars, and Frank Rollier has informed us that the cartels preparing the Congress theme are going well;
– because you, members of the NLS, the Societies and Groups are also very active.

Like last year in Tel Aviv, you will be able to present your work during the Congress; we have decided to organize parallel sessions in Ghent.
 
For this 2020 Congress, I therefore ask you to send us proposals for papers for the parallel sessions. This means developing clinical case studies. To orient your work, I’ll refer to a citation from Lacan that Éric Laurent highlighted in his 2020 Congress orientation text, that indicates how language and thus interpretation is first resonance before being communication: “‘The master breaks the silence with anything [n’importe quoi] – with a sarcastic remark, with a kick-start. That is how a Buddhist master conducts his search for meaning, according to the technique of Zen. It behooves the students to find out for themselves the answer to their own questions. The master does not teach ex cathedra a ready-made science; he supplies an answer when the students are on the verge of finding it.’[1] Make no mistake, these lines […] aim at the practice of analytic interpretation most profoundly anchored in the experience of the cure,” adds Éric Laurent.[2]

I also emphasize, as does Jacques-Alain Miller, that while dreams are interpreted, dreams themselves interpret. This will be, of course, the object of some case studies.
 
The preparation for organizing parallel sessions represents a considerable amount of work in order to process the texts that will be sent to us. I therefore appeal to your good will to respect scrupulously the following instructions. Where these instructions have not been followed, in order to lighten some of the secretarial work we will return texts to their authors to be resubmitted as requested.
 
Only eighteen texts will be selected. One must know how to say no, and one must know how to accept a refusal. It will not be easy for those who have invested all their effort in a paper that is not accepted.
 
Three parallel sessions will be organized, the themes of which will be decided later, depending on your work.
 
You are therefore invited to submit a contribution in line with the theme of the Congress.
 
It is not necessary to send us an argument. Please present a definitive text that must meet the following guidelines:

• The text must be written in one of the two languages of the NLS: English or French.
• The text cannot exceed 6500 characters including spaces (10 minutes).
• It must be written in Times New Roman font, font size 12.
• At the top of the page please write:
       The title of your contribution
       Your name followed by your first name
       Your e-mail address
       Your phone number preceded by the prefix of your country.
• The document must have page numbers.
• The texts must, without exception, be sent before 31 March 2020.

Your text will be read by the Scientific Committee. You will be informed of its decision. Either it will be accepted, or it will not be accepted, or you will be asked to revise it. In this case, a mentor will be assigned to you to help you establish the final version.
 
Be nice! Please follow these instructions scrupulously. We will not be able to work on your text with you if it does not respect these guidelines. In this case, we will send your text back to you and ask you to make the necessary changes.

Please send me your work: seynhaeve.bernard@gmail.com

See you soon!

Best wishes,

Bernard Seynhaeve

[1] Lacan, Jacques, Écrits, The First Complete Edition in English, tr. B. Fink, Routledge, London, 2006, p. 707.
[2] Laurent, Éric, “Interpretation : From Truth to Event”, Orientation Text towards the 2020 Congress of the NLS, delivered at the 2019 Congress in Tel Aviv, https://amp-nls.org/page/gb/170/the-congress