Absence - Annual Topic 2024

Introduction by Monika Pessler

ABSENCE can take many forms – it can mean the non-presence of a person or an object, or, in the figurative sense, a state of mental reverie or rapture. Although according to Freud we are denied complete and comprehensive insight into the inner affairs of our mental apparatus, it nevertheless makes sense to engage with the absent that so insistently acts on our being – and this is why the members of our scientific advisory board address ABSENCE in the following texts. More ...