“Dropping out of the race”: time, transitoriness, and depression in the neoliberal

This study aims to investigate how the neoliberal era articulates time, transitoriness, and depression, based on vignettes of the character Esther Greenwood — portrayed by Sylvia Plath in 1963 in her novel “The Bell Jar” — and on the psychoanalytic literature from Freud to Lacan. Esther denounces and teaches about the insurgent position depressive subjects establish in the face of the imperatives of enjoyment and haste in contemporary times, envincing transitoriness as an inescapable reality. Depression emerges as paradigmatic for reflection precisely because of the setback it represents, the way in which neoliberal rationality directly interferes with the experience individuals maintain with time and transitoriness, and therefore, with life and death.

Key words:
Time; transitoriness; depression; neoliberalism