The point of this meeting was to discuss how I've liked the course so far, as well as my plans for the MA Thesis, the essays for each of the four classes, and beyond. Perhaps what I will do here is expound upon my thoughts and what we discussed, starting with the essays for each of the four modules.
In addition to the MA Thesis, due at the end of June, there is a 5,000 word essay for each module, all due at the start of May. There are certain parameters for each of those essays. My thinking is to use the essays as a way to prepare for the thesis.
For the first class, Key Texts of Jung, one option is to simply analyze and critique a particular piece of Jung's writing. The first half of this course (i.e. right now) deals more with Jung's use of mythology than his commentaries on science or society. I will tackle either of those two, either Jung's take on society as seen in The Undiscovered Self, or his take on science in Synchronicity. Both would have a lot to chew on. Tackling Jung's philosophy of science might have a rational incentive, considering the direction of my interests, but I already know Undiscovered Self fairly well (it's one of the first non-typology related texts of Jung that I ever read), and his social critiques in there are pretty fantastic; basically making the argument that secular society dooms itself by ignoring the psyche (or spirit, or whatever). Conversely, he also warns that religion, when a function of the state, corrodes humanity in the exact opposite way. Basically the Undiscovered Self, one of the last major texts that Jung wrote (1959, two years before he unus-mundus'd his way out of the building), is his ultimate sales pitch for analytical psychology; that his version of psychology is the answer to humankind's psychic imbalance. Self-serving? Certainly. Jung has a long history of this, whether cautiously aligning himself with the Nazis or writing a shitty obituary for Freud, he was always eager to sell his product. That said, I myself think depth psychology potentially holds the solution to get academics out of this big postmodern crockashit it's been in for forty years. More on that later.
Jung in Contexts is essentially a history class. It's not one of the assigned essay questions, but I would like to get permission to trace Jung's construction of the psychological types. He borrowed quite a bit from his contemporaries and from his own acolytes. It also seems that, once he settled on his model he refused to consider other alternatives; nor was he completely forthright in crediting others for his conclusions. Like I said, I'm not sure if I can do this because it's not one of the assigned essay questions. If so, I would probably focus on one of the assigned questions either dealing with his split with Freud, or perhaps more intriguingly, his flirtation with Nazism. There's one to stir the shit with.
Key Concepts is the seminar where a visiting lecturer comes in every week. This essay is very open-ended; essentially the job is to just write about any discussed topic in various ways. I will almost certainly do this on psychological types. Perhaps I will do the historical investigation as part of this essay, while also discuss how the theory has evolved into multiple offshoots nowadays (Myers-Briggs, Keirsey, Socionics). This will be the paper to compile and marshal thoughts on personality types for future papers.
Finally, Applications of Jung is about taking analytical psychology and applying it to another field. I will try to do this with biology, most likely ecology and evolutionary theory. This is a large undertaking and will be very difficult to do in 5000 words. Frankly I don't think my knowledge of biology is sufficient to do it justice just yet (this is another reason why I won't do biology in my MA dissertation). I think I need to tackle some evolutionary theory and some ecology/ethology to be able to do this right. I need specific arguments that I can tackle using Jungian philosophy. This is something I will start to work on over Christmas break.
Okay, so those are the classes. For the MA Dissertation, I have decided to avoid the question of evolution and personality types for now. One reason for this is precisely what I described above: I don't think I'm ready to tackle the biological angle just yet. There is a lot to read from many perspectives. This leads into the second reason: there's no way I could do that topic justice in one academic year. Instead, I'd rather focus on building a philosophy, a framework to take Jungian thought out of subjectivism and postmodernism alone and place it in scientific determinism. Let me explain.
Many people here- the students at least- link analytical psychology with postmodernism. There's lots of focus on personal exploration, mythology, art, film, dreams... and an emphasis on subjectivity and relativism. This is of course not really the fault of Jungian psychology specifically; this is the trend in most of academics right now. I think the psychoanalytic fields let themselves fall into this fad because it was the best way to get a foot in academia.
For many reasons I feel it is a damn shame a philosophy as broad as Jung's- and no matter what Jung said his ideas are a philosophy- is not aligned with much scientific thinking. You see some neuroscientists here or there cite Jung as an inspiration, but few others. In my mind, Jung is actually much more of a determinist than he is anything else, and recognition of that might A) throw into question the use of postmodernism alone in tackling Jung these days B) show links and paths to take between depth psychology and the 'hard' sciences, and C) To reconcile some of the more... bewildering aspects of Jung's writings with different modes of thought. To do this, I would like to link Jung's ideas of the collective psyche, archetypes, and even personality types and individuation with a philosopher who had an equally ambitious vision of the world, very similar to Jung's despite coming from a radically different function of the mind. Spinoza.
Spinoza's God and Jung's collective unconscious. I think there's a lot to put together there. This is something I will expound upon as I continue to gather material. But I think it's the right platform for me to go into the years after I get my MA. Plus, I can say my MA thesis is about God. That's kinda cool.
No comments:
Post a Comment