[FRA:] Columbia University Seminar: Dying for One's Country

[Orion Anderson]

Columbia University Seminar on Death
"Dying for One's Country"
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007, 7pm

Dear Colleague,

Richard Koenigsberg will be presenting at the upcoming Columbia University
Seminar on Death on December 12.

For more information, please call 718-393-1081.

The Columbia University Seminars were founded more than sixty years ago as a
meeting ground for cross-disciplinary and inter-institutional inquiries,
bringing together academia, policy makers and community practitioners.

The Seminar on Death has participants representing many fields, including
medicine, social work, nursing, psychology, anthropology, religion, art
history, ethics and law. As required of University Seminars, a rapporteur is
in attendance and takes notes which are deposited in the manuscript
collection at the University's Butler Library. For more information on the
Columbia University Seminar on Death please CLICK
<http://www.columbia.edu/cu/seminars/death/DeathSeminarIndex.html>  HERE.

The title of Dr. Koenigsberg's presentation is "Dying for One's Country: The
Soldier as Sacrificial Victim." Please see a description of his talk below.

For more information, please call 718-393-1081.

DYING FOR ONE'S COUNTRY: 
The Soldier and Sacrificial Death 

Presentation by Richard Koenigsberg, Ph.D. at the Columbia University
Seminar on Death, Wednesday, December 12, at 7pm.

Ordinarily, death is conceived as a bad thing. The death of a soldier in
battle is a bad thing, but also a good thing. People revere the soldier for
the death that he has suffered on our behalf: he has sacrificed his life for
his country. In order to wage war, a nation must be willing to "suffer
casualties"--to send people into battle where they may be killed. A nation's
willingness to sacrifice its soldiers testifies to the fact that one's
society is devoted to its sacred ideals. The death of the soldier in battle
performs a validating function.

Richard Koenigsberg received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the
Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. New editions of his
books are about to be released: Hitler's Ideology: Embodied Metaphor,
Fantasy and History; The Nation: A Study in Ideology and Fantasy; and The
Fantasy of Oneness and the Struggle to Separate: Towards a Psychology of
Culture. He is Director of the LIBRARY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE, a company that
promotes and publicizes scholarly books and conferences.

If you are able to attend the seminar--or unable to attend--please read Dr.
Koenigsberg's online publications:

 <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Elibraryofsocialscience/soldier_nightmare.htm>
"The Soldier as Sacrificial Victim:
Awakening from the Nightmare of History"

 <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Elibraryofsocialscience/as_the_soldier.htm>
"As the Soldier Dies, So Does the Nation Come Alive:
The Sacrificial Meaning of Warfare"