Coronavirus Psychoanalysis And Philosophy

Originally published in the European Journal of Psychoanalysis (EJP), the essays in this volume are a set of responses to the coronavirus crisis by distinguished philosophers and psychoanalysts from around the globe. The coronavirus irrupted making swift and deep cuts in the fabric of our existence: the risks of contagion and indefinite periods of isolation have radically altered the functioning of society. Pandemics do not wait for comprehension in order to proliferate. Confusion, sickness, and death punctuate the failure of governments worldwide to respond. This collection of writings examines the effects of the pandemic and the conditions that make possible such a global crisis. The writers provoke us to consider how capitalism, governmental power, and biopolitics mold the contours of life and death. The contributors in this collection ignite urgent political dialogue, address emergent transformations in the social field and offer perspectives on shifts in subjectivity and psychoanalytic practice. Beyond providing reflections on the impact of the coronavirus, the authors point to determinants of how the crisis will unfold and what may be on the horizon. This book will be invaluable to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, philosophers, and to all those interested in the implications of the virus for psychoanalytic practice and theory, and the social, cultural and political spheres of our world.

This book looks at the representation of viruses in rhetoric, politics, and popular culture. In utilizing Jean Baudrillard’s concept of virality, it examines what it means to use viruses as a metaphor. For instance, what is the effect of saying that a video has gone viral? Does this use of biology to explain culture mean that our societies are determined by biological forces? Moreover, does the rhetoric of viral culture display a fundamental insensitivity towards people who are actually suffering from viruses? A key defining aspect of this mode of persuasion is the notion that due to the open nature of our social and cerebral networks, we are prone to being infected by uncontrollable external forces. Drawing from the work of Freud, Lacan, Laclau, Baudrillard, and Zizek, it examines the representation of viruses in politics, psychology, media studies, and medical discourse. The book will help readers understand the potentially destructive nature of how viruses are represented in popular media and politics, how this can contribute to conspiracy theories around COVID-19 and how to combat such misinterpretations.

Nearly two years on, the experiences and trajectories of the pandemic across the world have confirmed that it has been in the grasp of a systemic malaise, ‘le mal’. Everywhere evil is as a viral condition: in the etymological sense of a poison and in the media-theoretical sense, in its uncontrollable spread, of a contagion. It is time to revaluate the concept of evil, raising it as perhaps the only term through which philosophy can reflect on the pandemic. This collection contains responses from moral and political philosophy, epistemology, and ontology, literary studies, theology and psychoanalysis. It is a collective meditation which takes a plural approach to the sufferings of different parts of the world, deploying a stance dedicated to place and specificity.Their distinct contributions arise from multiple traditions, with voices from within and beyond the “western” canon. The eighteen mediations decline the temptation to isolate the pandemic as a simple great event, equal across the globe that it continues to devastate. Instead, like the witches of Macbeth, they come together as a gathering to speak of this state of evil, for it is our own condition. They explore the hesitating question, which yet confesses a terrifying suspicion: is it possible to speak of evil in the time of the pandemic?

This edited collection examines the contemporary relevance of Lacan’s 1965 essay “Science and Truth” to debates on science, psychoanalysis, ethics and truth. In doing so, it re-considers the established understanding of its argument that psychoanalysis is the only science for the human subject. Over fifty years after Lacan attempted to formalize the relationship between science and psychoanalysis in “Science and Truth,” this volume returns to the categorically systematic yet deeply puzzling ideas of this lecture-turned-essay. The volume begins with a rigorous analysis of the formal logic animating the cogito, which serves as a foundation for the remainder of the book to force a confrontation between the themes laid out in “Science and Truth” and the cultural, intellectual, political, economic, and, of course, scientific movements that we face today. The following five chapters examine various contemporary phenomena, including the destabilizing forces of post-truthism and political nihilism, the ‘non-science’ of filmic depictions of science, the prosopopeia of Lacan’s so-called secular Name of the Father, the pseudoscientific discourse of involuntary celibates, or ‘incels,’ and, finally, the alliance between science and capitalism that has developed out of the Covid-19 pandemic. This project offers an important contribution to contemporary debates about science and ethics that will be of interest to academics working in psychoanalytic and critical theory, and the philosophy and history of science; as well as to clinicians.

What do sex doll sales, locust swarms and a wired-brain pig have to do with the coronavirus pandemic? Everything--according to that "Giant of Lubliana," the inimitable Slovenian philosopher Slavoj ?i?ek. In this exhilarating sequel to his acclaimed Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World, ?i?ek delves into some of the more surprising dimensions of lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing--and the increasingly unruly opposition to them by "response fatigued" publics around the world. ?i?ek examines the ripple effects on the food supply of harvest failures caused by labor shortages and the hyper-exploitation of the global class of care workers, without whose labor daily life would be impossible. Through such examples he pinpoints the inability of contemporary capitalism to safeguard effectively the public in times of crisis. Writing with characteristic daring and zeal, ?i?ek ranges across critical theory, pop-culture, and psychoanalysis to reveal the troubling dynamics of knowledge and power emerging in these viral times.

This edited volume examines the psychosocial transformations experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, and envisions those that might lead to a more equitable society as we ‘open up’. The book integrates psychoanalysis, sociology, cultural studies, and psychology to address three main areas: personal experiences of the lockdown, new formations of power and desire that the lockdown has shaped, and global concerns related to the pandemic. Within those three areas, the chapters discuss key themes that include the uses of space during lockdown; experiences of death, loss, and domestic violence; race and the pandemic; technology, media, and viral media; chronic illness; handwashing and COVID-19; and conspiracy theories. Drawing together academics and practitioners with a common vision of social justice and active pedagogy, the contents of this volume combine experiential writing with cutting-edge, theoretically-informed interdisciplinary debates. The book advances and demonstrates the productive diversity of psychosocial studies, drawing on psychoanalytic theories, critical psychologies, critical theories, critical race theories, process philosophies, affect theories, and critical pedagogy. In doing so, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences.

Every aspect of the pandemic was said to be ‘total,’ absolute, and undiscriminating. Its very name implied as much. The virus was everywhere, and a threat to us all. In Philosophy, Biopolitics, and the Virus: The Elision of an Alternative, Michael Lewis identifies three moments within the pandemic that were conceived in such a monolithic way: (1) ‘The Science,’ which had to be unanimous if it was to assume a sovereign role, and to have us ‘follow’ it; (2) ‘non-pharmaceutical interventions,’ which were regarded as the only possible response, without which death and disease would ‘run riot’; and (3) the one sole remedy that could bring about the promised end of the restrictions, to the exclusion of every other conception of medicine, treatment, and care. In each case of seeming universality, dissent immediately identifies you as a friend of the virus. And yet if all of these cases have been revealing their counterproductivity ever since, what are we to make of the elision of alternatives? Is it part of a more general tendency to thrust the questioning of hegemonic notions to the margins of respectable discourse, inhabited solely by the mad, bad, and dangerous to know?

As an unprecedented global pandemic sweeps the planet, who better than the supercharged Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek to uncover its deeper meanings, marvel at its mind-boggling paradoxes and speculate on the profundity of its consequences? We live in a moment when the greatest act of love is to stay distant from the object of your affection. When governments renowned for ruthless cuts in public spending can suddenly conjure up trillions. When toilet paper becomes a commodity as precious as diamonds. And when, according to Žižek, a new form of communism – the outlines of which can already be seen in the very heartlands of neoliberalism – may be the only way of averting a descent into global barbarism. Written with his customary brio and love of analogies in popular culture (Quentin Tarantino and H. G. Wells sit next to Hegel and Marx), Žižek provides a concise and provocative snapshot of the crisis as it widens, engulfing us all.