Depression: Representations in French Prose at the Turn of the Millennium

在我的书中，我将分析千年之交法国散文中抑郁的表现，超越天才美学或病理学的范式。这些抑郁的表现是摩擦或秩序失败的症状。因此，我的研究必须考察秩序系统因功能失调而出现问题的方式。法国小说之所以被选中，是因为传统范式（精神分析的嵌入，对医学话语的激烈讨论等）和最近的发展（欧洲最广泛使用精神药物，当代散文中抑郁的反英雄的显著存在，往往具有自传体小说的特征）的结合。该项目将把抑郁现象置于文学研究领域，并以文化研究的视角讨论作为审查实验室的文学生产。在此过程中，叙事文本的表演性将被假设；因此，文本及其对抑郁的表现变成了危机问题化和主体潜能化的一个阶段。所分析的小说尤其关注男性（反）英雄。在这种背景下，性别特定结构的拆除是一个基本特征，因此，我对抑郁现象的研究将有助于最近基于分析中采用的文化方法的男性气质研究。在我的分析中，我将表明，高度热门的抑郁症发生的整体社会影响被发展并重新解释为抵抗。这些结论将与医学领域（神经科学、精神分析）的研究现状联系起来，因此，由于文学表现而获得的关于抑郁症的知识将扩展到跨学科的谈判。连接三个学科的认识论范式是我的方法的一个特点。通过应用这种方法，我旨在探索抑郁症的复杂性。此外，该调查有望对非研究团体讨论该主题作出宝贵贡献，因为它将直接与社会政治相关性和医疗保健政策的最新辩论联系起来。

In my book I will analyze representations of depression in French prose at the turn of the millennium beyond paradigms of the aesthetic of genius or pathology. These representations of depression function as symptoms of frictions or of the failure of the order. My study, therefore, has to examine the manner in which the system of the order is problematized by dysfunction. French novels have been selected because of the concurrence of traditional paradigms (embedding of psychoanalysis, intensified discussion of medical discourses etc.) and more recent developments (most extensive use of psychotropic drugs in Europe, significant presence of depressed anti-heroes in contemporary prose which often features autofictional traits). The project will situate the phenomenon of depression within the field of literary studies and, furthermore, will discuss the production of literature as a laboratory for reviewing based on the perspective of cultural studies. In doing so, a performativity of narrative texts will be assumed; as a consequence, the texts and its representations of depression turn into a stage for the problematization of crisis as well as the potency of subjects. The analyzed novels focus on male (anti-)heroes in particular. In this context the dismantling of gender specific constructions is an essential characteristic and thus, my study of the phenomenon of depression will contribute to recent masculinity studies based on the cultural approaches taken in the analysis. In my analysis I will show that overall societal implications of the highly topical occurrence of depression are developed and reinterpreted as resistance. Such conclusions will be linked to the current state of research in the medical field (neurosciences, psychoanalysis) and, hence, the acquired knowledge about depression due to the literary representations will be extended to a transdisciplinary negotiation. Connecting the epistemological paradigms of the three disciplines is a special feature of my approach. By applying this method I aim at exploring the complexity of depression.Additionally, the investigation promises to be a valuable contribution to the discussion of the topic for non-research groups since it is to be linked directly to the latest debates of socio-political relevance and healthcare policies.