What is the link between desire and exploitation, and what does it mean for political thought?

14 Mar 2016
6:00pm – 7:30pm
137a, Richard Hoggart Building

One of the earliest discoveries of psychoanalysis concerned the intimate relation of the social structures and the unconscious mechanisms. Jacques Lacan later reframed this connection by speaking of homology between political and libidinal economy. In this way, he indicated that psychoanalysis significantly widened the space, in which critical thought and emancipatory politics should intervene in order to intensify the possibilities of a social change. The talk will begin by discussing two concepts, which demonstrate a wide-reaching link between Marx and Freud’s critical projects, before passing on to more general examination of the link between libidinal bonds and mechanisms of exploitation.

Samo Tomšic is the author of The Capitalist Unconscious: Marx and Lacan, and is currently research assistant in the interdisciplinary cluster “Image Knowledge Gestaltung” at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

All welcome. No need to book.