Summary: An informal and loving discussion This event will be an informal and loving discussion between amateurs on the subject of love. Using different aspects of love in Greek philosophy - agápe, éros, philía, and storgē - and Freud’s conceptualisations of Eros, we will think about why it’s so difficult to love.Download the free 'Love: a guide for amateurs' e-book here David Morgan will look at the profound experiences we face with intimacy, in learning deeply about ourselves.Candida Yates will look at ‘new intimacies’ in our representations of love, jealousy and flirtation in popular culture.Matt Gieve and Milena Stateva will think about love as the interplay between emancipation and resistance in an economic view in contemporary notions of love. Steve Fuller will ask, as the sphere of human concern extends beyond Homo sapiens to other animals and even machines, is our capacity for agape, a ‘higher love’ increased as well? Yiannis Gabriel will look at what happens when all love is sucked out of a community in the grip of a contagious pathogen which dissolves bonds of solidarity and trust among its members. Marianna Fotaki will talk about the link between a culture of compulsive consumerism and toxic attachments and propose an ethics of relationality and compassionate care. The event will be managed compassionately by Elizabeth Cotton and will include publication of an eBook and online activities #loveamateurs in the run up to the event to find out what you really want to know about love. Biographies: David Morgan is a consultant psychotherapist and psychoanalyst NHS and private practice. Training analyst/therapist and supervisor for the British Psychoanalytic Association and British Psychotherapy Foundation, and a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society. He is Hon. Lecturer at City University, London. Director of (PiP) Public interest Psychology. He provides consultation to the public and private sector, including organisations of a political and social nature, and is a regular speaker at conferences. He enjoys lecturing and teaching and has contributed to radio programmes on Whistleblowing, Van Gogh(Radio 4) and the Political Mind(ABC). Recently he has lectured on Narcissism (London School of Economics), Poetry; Hypnotism; Louise Bourgeois (Freud Museum) Perversion (City University), Whistleblowing and Dissent, (Institute of Psychoanalysis Wessex Training Oxford). Sleep Paralysis (Dana Centre), and War States (UCL). He has recently published in the New Internationalist. He was co-editor with Stan Ruszczynski of Lectures on Violence, Perversion, and Delinquency (Karnac, 2007). Marianna Fotaki is Professor of Business Ethics at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, and holds a visiting professorship in Manchester Business School. She is a graduate of medicine, public health, and obtained a PhD in public policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Before joining academia Marianna worked as EU resident adviser and as a medical doctor for Médecins Sans Frontières and Médecins Du Monde for eight years. Milena Stateva is Senior Researcher and Consultant at the Tavistock Institute. She deploys rigour from social and political thought, British psychoanalysis, group relations, critical and deconstructive theory, and qualitative research in sociology. Her recent work supports those working on vulnerability and trauma across differences - understanding Roma as a trans-national minority, working with systemic blockages surrounding welcoming migrants and challenges to migration (human trafficking, mental health, detention, etc), and empowering parents. Milena's project for the year ahead is the Tavistock Institute Academia, a new professional development offer prioritising reflectivity rather than the transfer of knowledge and skills. Steve Fuller is Auguste Comte Professor of Social Epistemology in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick. The author of twenty books, his most rec
