Politics and psychic suffering: a study on Agamben and psychoanalysis

• Grant number: 14/05329-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: March 01, 2015
• End date: August 05, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Psychological Treatment and Prevention
• Principal Investigator: Christian Ingo Lenz Dunker
• Grantee: Marcus Cesar Ricci Teshainer
• Host Institution: Instituto de Psicologia (IP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 16/04705-7 - Politics and psychic suffering: a study on Agamben and psychoanalysis, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

This project aims to comprehend the subject`s constitution in contemporaneous politics, in order to understand the psychic symptons of the constituted subject in the political scenery of the state of exception, political paradigm proposed by Agamben. This project proposal comes up after the study of the relation between Foucault`s concept of biopolitics and psychoanalysis and a critical analysis of human rights based on Agamben`s biopolitical conception, still related to psychoanalysis. For the elaboration of the proposed project we will make the presentation, and afterwards the analysis of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben`s political work, in order to comprehend his thinking on the importance and strength of law in contemporaneous politics. Then we will focus on the contributions of psychoanalysis to the understanding of law as constitutor of subject, and finally we will concentrate on the formation of psychic symptom in a contemporaneous context. In this way we intend to study how the Italian philosopher understands the contemporaneous, and then we will present his ideas about his political paradigm - the state of exception - and how it relates not only to isolated cases, but to all politics of our times. Finally, based on Freud`s Totem and Taboo, and on Lacan`s contributions related to it, especially regarding the elaboration of the concept Name-of-the-Father, we intend to demonstrate how law constitutes the subject, to focus on the symptom as psychic suffering resulting from this paradigm.