Come join the Institute for Critical Social Theory at our inaugural conference, July 17-19, 2025, at Bristol University (UK). Seyed Javad Miri and I are the plenary speakers in this three day conference. Our conference theme is “Critical Theory in an Age of Social Disintegration.” The Call for Papers is below, or visit us at the ICST website: Institute for Critical Social Theory.
On December 7th, 2024, I had the wonderful opportunity to join Rudy Leal McCormack and Maior Levitin on “The Fromm Connection,” wherein we discussed a variety of topics as they related to my recent publication, “Can Religion be Rescued in the 21st Century: On Erich Fromm’s Religious Humanism in an Age of Authoritarian Populism” (Journal of Psychosocial Studies). I deeply appreciate their invitation to discuss Erich Fromm and his continual relevance to today’s society.
On Thursday, November 14th, 2024, I had the great pleasure of welcoming Dr. Rainer Funk into my course on Erich Fromm, “Visionary Thinkers: Freedom and Fear.” Dr. Funk spoke with my class via Zoom from Tübingen, Germany, where he is the Director of the Erich Fromm Institute, the Co-Director of the Erich Fromm Study Center at the International Psychoanalytic University (IPU) in Berlin, and a practicing psychoanalyst. He is Erich Fromm’s sole Literary Executor and among his publications are the 10-volume German edition of Erich Fromm Collected Works (1980 and 1981; expanded to 12-volumes in 1999). We were pleased to benefit from his knowledge of Erich Fromm and wisdom about the world.
My article “Syed Hussein Alatas and the ‘Captive Mind’: Decolonizing the Non-Western Psychoanalyst,” has now been published by the journal, Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society (Springer).
Abstract: This essay examines the work of Syed Hussein Alatas and his concept of the captive mind as it relates to psychoanalysis in the non-Western context. I argue that psychoanalysts have to go through a two-part process to decolonize psycho- analysis so as to avoid trapping analysts and analysands within the confines of the captive mind, as detailed in Syed Hussein Alatas’s many writings.
Here’s another way to access the article, through “Share it” via Springer: Syed Hussein Alatas.
I’m pleased to announce the new edited volume, The Many Faces of Populism: Perspectives from Critical Theory and Beyond, which I co-edited with Mlado Ivanovic and Jeremiah Morelock, will be released by Brill this coming December.
Contributors include: Dustin J. Byrd, Emília Barna and Ágnes Patakfalvi-Czirják, Ronald Beiner, Samir Gandesha, Yonathan Listik, Grigoris Markou, Jeremiah Morelock and Felipe Ziotti Narita, Maria Cristina Dancham Simões and Carlos Antonio Giovinazzo Júnior, and Hassan Zaheer.
Order it directly through Brill, The Many Faces of Populism, or find it on Amazon.
On September 27, 2024, I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in the 2024 Courageous Leadership Colloquium for The University of Olivet. In my presentation, I spoke about the importance of disobedience, especially as it relates to being existentially free.
On September 15, 2024, I had the wonderful opportunity to present my work at the inaugural Erich Fromm Society of North America conference at Gonzaga University. My presentation was on the problem of “oikophobia,” or fear/hatred of all things our own). Oikophobia entails the pathological disavowal of all things Western, including the civilization, culture, history, religion, philosophy, etc. It has plagued a portion of the political Left, especially in academia. I argue that for the Left to abandon the Western inheritance is to leave it in the hands of the far-right, who will functionalize it as a tool of repression against all things “non-Western” residing in the West. What is needed is a dialectical approach to the Western inheritance, not an abstract negation. A video of my presentation can be found on the Dustin J. Byrd Audio-Visual Archive on YouTube.
I’m pleased to announce that my latest co-edited book, “Sigmund Freud as a Critical Social Theorist: Psychoanalysis and the Neurotic in Contempoary Society” will be released at the end of November, 2024. My co-editor, Seyed Javad Miri, and I conceived of this book amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, as we were both reading Freud. We wanted to show not that Freud was right about everything – he certainly wasn’t, but rather that Freud’s work continues to be theoretically fruitful in a variety of disciplines and subject. Thus, the thread that unites the chapters in the book is the realization that Freud is not dead, but rather is alive and well within critical social theory.
The portrait of Freud used for the cover was painted by a former student of mine at The University of Olivet, Mahalia Stelter, who is an amazing portrait artist. It was a great pleasure to commission the painting for the purpose of this book.
Contributors: Joan Braune, Jimmy Butts, Dustin J. Byrd, Mlado Ivanovic, Clint Jones, Howard L. Kaye, Ulrike Kistner, Lauren Langman, Gregory Joseph Menillo, Seyed Javad Miri, Michael Naughton, Délia Popa, Francesco Ranci, Iaan Reynolds, Rudolf J. Siebert, Yannis Stavrakakis, Alfred I. Tauber, Michael J. Thompson, Eli Zaretsky
Freud as a Critical Social Theorist: Psychoanalysis and the Neurotic in Contemporary Society
In the summer of 2023, I had the wonderful experience of presenting my work on Erich Fromm and the International Psychoanalytic University in Berlin. I discussed the “rescue of religion” in an age of authoritarian populism from a Frommian perspective. Later, I was asked to turn my presentation into an article for a special edition on Erich Fromm in the Journal of Psychosocial Studies (Bristol University Press), edited by Rainer Funk, psychoanalyst, former assistant to Erich Fromm, and Director of the Erich Fromm Institute in Tübingen, Germany. I’m happy to announce that it is now available. Can Religion be Rescued in the 21st Century?
dustinjbyrd
Dustin J. Byrd, Ph.D. 