Politics of Psychic Life

1 Course Unit

The psyche has long been a site of translation, contention, and imagination. From colonial discourses on the mentality of others to political philosophies of reason and autonomy, mental life has been a central figure in claims to modernity. Meanwhile, problems of psychic subjugation and liberation have been crucial to anti-imperialist and anti-psychiatric movements, including spiritual traditions that do not take the problem to be a secular one. Since COVID-19, forms of psychic suffering old and new have intensified across experiences of collective isolation, racialized violence, and extraction and surveillance (digital and otherwise), accompanied by calls to decolonize mental health. This seminar engages with classic and contemporary texts from anthropology and beyond to rethink the politics of psychic life today. How might attention to psychic life, broadly conceived, make way for new forms of critical and transformative inquiry? 1 Course Unit