Deferring the Self

The book is a collection of essays, weaving together psychoanalysis, political theory and art. Ranging from the discussion of Freud, Foucault, Žižek and Agamben, through revealing analyses of politics and memory in contemporary Poland, to a discussion of Foks, Kozłowski, and Opałka, the author attempts to develop a new style of humanistic thinking. This book is a result of studies on psychoanalysis, politics, and art. The topics in this book range from populism, the limits of the political, identity, melancholy, the peculiarity of psychoanalytical interpretation to the connection of theatre and politics. Psychoanalysis is a form of practicing personal truth, which needs to be one’s own and which is not a result of anonymous discourse. Politics is the practice of being with others; it is the cultivation of antagonistic relations with others. Art is the practice aiming at giving one’s life the mark of something unique, it is the very practice of life.