The act reconsidered: Actcidental Antigone and the new wounded

Abstract

This paper defends a Lacanian reading of political subjectivity apropos trauma against Catherine Malabou’s neurobiological critique of psychoanalysis. Malabou claims that our political era is increasingly characterised by the new wounded – post-traumatic subjects who are clinically and theoretically beyond psychoanalysis. Through a retelling of Sophocles’ Antigone using a novel taxonomy of Lacan’s concept of the act, a new type of Lacanian subject is revealed that refutes Malabou to ensure the continuing relevance of the psychoanalytic lens on contemporary politics.