The City of Bones: Spectral Presences as Healers of Cultural Complexes

Using the healing processes in poetry, literature, visual arts and psychoanalysis, the presenters will consider how phantomatic and ancestral forces act in us through “cultural complexes” and “phantom narratives.” We will contemplate the ways we come to grips with our collective histories of racial, ethnic, gender identities and biases through reparation, implication, forgiveness and clinical work.

The contemporary written word from African Americans about the spectral presences who act as our guides from our world to in-between worlds, landing on mythical shores where history can be revealed, witnessed, and cleansed in our souls will be used to amplify the need for such presences. Clinical examples of this process will be included.