The Disrupted Self: Madness, Modernity and Context

Siby K George (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay)

► 13.01., 15.00 (3:00 pm CET) via zoom 

·      Lecture in English

·      please register under: [email protected]

Dr. Siby K. George (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India): The Disrupted Self: Madness, Modernity and Context

·      with a commentary by Murat Ates

Phenomenological accounts associate ill conditions of the psyche/soul with disturbance in its habitual ways of being in the world (Heidegger) or disruptions of the intentional arc (Merleau-Ponty) that envelops the body and connects it with the world. All illnesses involve varying degrees of disruptions of our embodied-enworlded way of being. However, because ill conditions of the psyche cannot be pinpointed to be located specifically in the body, cultural understandings of their meaning, character, and even reality have varied that much more starkly (Foucault). In this talk, my focus will be on how the disruptions of madness are looked at in India after the arrival of modern medicine, and how such an account could contribute to contextualize and decolonize psychopathology.