Citation

Stephens MA. Psychoanal. Q. 2022; 91(2): 319-347.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Wiley-Blackwell)

DOI

10.1080/00332828.2022.2096797

PMID

36036945

Abstract

Amidst a pandemic and the events following George Floyd's murder in 2020, discussions of race have escalated in the psychoanalytic community. One theoretical formulation, Afropessimism, has served as a lightning rod across both psychoanalytic and academic circles. Another, Black Rage, offers a psychoanalytic theory of the psychic effect of racial oppression on traumatized subjects. Using both as catalysts, this essay explores the historicity of the questions raised by the racial unrest of the pandemic--the deep embedding of questions of race and Blackness in unconscious prehistories of modernity, the human, and our understanding of our social worlds.

Language: en

Keywords

pandemic; George Floyd; racism; Afropessimism; Black Rage; Blackness; Caribbean history and culture; historicity; In Treatment; mental representation; relational psychoanalysis