The choreography of human relations: the mise en scène of existential spleen

Beskrivning

At the core of cultural semiotics lies the question about how the mechanisms behind the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion operates in the cultural system. To belong to something experienced as larger than ourselves gives us as sense of meaning in existence, as the psychiatrist, writer, and founder of Logotherapy Viktor E. Frankl (1990) so eminently has shown us. Today the sense of loss of meaning is one criterium for the diagnosis of depression. In 2020, 4% of the population 16-84 years old answered that they had got the diagnosis during the last year (Public Health Agency of Sweden, 2022). Might even the notion of meaning in this sense be synonymous with existential health? The aim
of this presentation is to shed some light on the issue of human relations and existential health. Relations are of an existential importance to us since the human, at some point in the evolution, became a “social cultural animal” (László, 2002). Research shows that loneliness is many times a larger risk factor in connection to premature mortality than exercise, air pollution and obesity (Holt-Lunstad, 2021). Mary Shelley’s novel about Frankenstein (1818/1831) and his “monster” is very much preoccupied with the question about exclusion and despair, the “being” was not born a monster he became one. Perhaps is
her fictive narrative one of the most important commentaries in literature on scientific materialism (Hogsette, 2011) and what that can do to the human being? Some examples from "Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus" will also be presented.

Period	2022 nov. 25
Evenemangstitel	Explorative workshop within the project "At the Margins of Life - Existential Dimensions of Technology, Health, and Death." Theme: Death
Typ av evenemang	Workshop
Plats	Lund, SverigeVisa på karta
Omfattning	Internationell