Lilian Munk Rösing

Henrik Jøker Bjerre

Brian Benjamin Hansen

Kirsten Hyldgaard

Jakob Rosendal

What are we doing when taking psychoanalysis from the couch to the analysis of society, culture, and arts? How is it possible to do so? How is it possible to move from singular experiences to universal structures detected in culture and society? Could psychoanalysis applied to art works become more sensitive to their aesthetics form? Psychoanalysis is often disclaimed as non-scientific, since its main object – the unconscious – has no positive existence. This book, however, proposes psychoanalysis to be a “science of the signifier”. It takes as its object the signifier – the signifying part of the sign – insisting that it always says more (or less) than intended, because its very materiality carries unintended messages. By defining the object of psychoanalysis as the signifier, this volume argues that we can speak of psychoanalysis as a science, even if it is closer to semiotics than biology. Analysing the Cultural Unconscious builds on this idea by arguing that the analysis of the signifier is the way to understand not only the individual unconscious, but also the cultural one. Replacing a person's monologue on the couch with ideology criticism or a piece of art, applied psychoanalysis allows us to analyse culture and the arts in a new way, uncovering the cultural unconscious.

Science of the Signifier

Analysing the Cultural Unconscious

Center for Vild Analyse

Man skulle tro, at et samfund var baseret på de traditioner, rammer og værdier, der gør sig gældende i det. Men dykker man ned i historien, ser man hurtigt, at samfundet er opstået som følge af en række brud med traditionerne, rammerne og værdierne. Det Arabiske Forår er et rigtig godt og aktuelt eksempel på et sådant brud. Rosa Parks stilfærdige, men ekstremt betydningsfulde handling, da hun i 1955 nægtede at flytte sig fra de sæder, der var forbeholdt hvide i de raceopdelte amerikanske sydstatsbusser, er et andet eksempel på, hvad Center for Vild Analyse definerer som særklasse. Handlinger, strømninger, samlinger, opbrud eller sammenbrud, der bærer noget med sig — en erkendelse, en stemning eller en vilje — der gør, at radikalt nye måder at tænke på bliver mulige. Center for Vild Analyse blander filosofi, sociologi, psykoanalyse og kulturhistorie med aktuelle eksempler fra dagligdagen, politikkens verden, fra kunsten, videnskaben og populærkulturen i deres beskrivelse af den politiske forandrings mulighed som særklasse.

Den tøvende revolution

Særklasse

Brian Benjamin Hansen

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