This is a virtual event held via Zoom at Eastern Time (ET).

Missing in Action:
Where’s the Unconscious in Anti-Racist ‘Unconscious Bias Training’?

Part of BGSP’s Fall 2024 | Spring 2025 Speaker Series: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Race, Racism and Culture, hosted by BGSP’s Department of Continuing Education

This presentation critiques psychoanalytic and political attempts at fighting racism, and in addition “unconscious bias training” because they negate significant psychoanalytic dimensions of racism and disavow any meaningful or collective engagement with the unconscious. The presenter suggests that there are many reasons to be skeptical. For example, how is the unconscious conceptualized? Is its deployment aimed at addressing the symptoms or the structures of underlying racism? And are its antagonistic dimensions—which is what makes the unconscious political—being disavowed or meaningfully integrated? Why has the struggle against global/structural racism been depoliticized by treating it as a symptom and an individual responsibility? The presentation will conclude by considering what psychoanalytic anti-racist politics might look like.

Presenter

Ilan Kapoor, Ph.D. is Professor of Critical Development Studies at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University, Toronto. His research centers on psychoanalytic and postcolonial theory/politics, and ideology critique. Dr. Kapoor is considered the first to bring both psychoanalysis and postcolonial analysis to the field of ‘Development Studies.’

His ‘SSHRC Insight Grant, 2019-23,’ “Psychoanalysis and International Development” investigated how, and to what extent, psychoanalysis intersects with international development; and to identify and analyze examples and case studies of psychoanalytic phenomena from both the Geography/Development Studies literature and the international programs of development organizations based on field work.

Dr. Kapoor is the author of seven books. His most recent books are Confronting Desire: Psychoanalysis and International Development (2020), Universal Politics (2022; co-authored), Global Libidinal Economy (2023; co-authored), and Rethinking Development Politics (2024; co-authored). 

Discussant

The Discussant for this event is TBA.

OBJECTIVES

The participant will be able to:

• Describe the psychoanalytic critique of anti-racist unconscious bias training.
• Discuss the differences between cognitive psychological and psychoanalytic approaches to anti-racism.
• Discuss the political, cultural, and economic dimensions that underpin unconscious institutional racism (in higher education as much as in the international, governmental, and non-governmental sectors).

(2 CEUs / Clock Hours)

Students | FREE
BGSP/CMPS Community Members | $25
General Admission | $40

Questions? Email us at continuinged@bgsp.edu or call (617) 277-3915.

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BGSP is authorized to provide CEs for: Psychologists (all levels), Social Workers, Counselors

Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. BGSP maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 5676. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

Application for social work continuing education credits is being submitted. Please contact us at continuinged@bgsp.edu for the status of social work CE accreditation.

For information on continuing education credits for nurses, social workers, or marriage and family counseling, call (617) 277-3915.

Direct inquiries may be made regarding the accreditation status by NECHE to the administrative staff of the institution. Individuals may also contact: New England Commission on Higher Education, 3 Burlington Woods Drive, Ste 100, Burlington, MA 01803-4514, at (781) 425-7785 or email: info@neche.org

The Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis is accredited by the New England Commission on Higher Education.

Direct inquiries may be made regarding the accreditation status by NECHE to the administrative staff of the institution. Individuals may also contact: New England Commission on Higher Education, 3 Burlington Woods Drive, Ste 100, Burlington, MA 01803-4514, at (781) 425-7785 or email: info@neche.org