CAPAS RESEARCH PROJECT - Timo Storck LIVING IN THE END-THROPOCENE. PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME AFTER THE END OF TIME
I intend to examine non-linear conceptions of time from both a psychological and psychoanalytic viewpoint to shed light on the specific role that “before” and “after” play in the context of the radical breaches of the apocalypse. In a first section, I will explore “experiential” time, focusing on three concepts from psychoanalysis: “après-coup” (how “later” events help to mentally construct “previous” ones and their effect on experience), “fear of breakdown” (dread of something that has already happened but has not been mentally processed due to intense anxiety), and “catastrophic change” (perceiving change as the catastrophe of losing what is known). This will provide a perspective that these radical forms of disruption, which are referred to as “apocalyptic,” must be embraced by accepting the end of what is known without already having a preconceived idea of what comes next. Instead, utopian thinking is atopic, rendering something genuinely post-apocalyptic. In a second section, I will apply these metatheoretical tools to both the individual level, in terms of the collapse of experiential time and the capacity to cope with anxiety in mental illness, and to the cultural level, in terms of exploring time, catastrophe, and utopian thinking in post-apocalyptic fictional narratives. Mental illness can be seen as a dysfunctional way of coping with dreaded change and/or letting go of familiar albeit static ways of managing experience. In fictional media, such as films or TV shows, apocalyptic narratives are met with fascination, allowing for an exploration of what characterizes utopian thinking that is built on embracing the apocalypse.