SYRBODY · The Tragic Body in the Syrian Context

“SYRBODY – The Tragic Body in the Syrian Context” is one of the first attempts to think the consequences that one of the greatest tragedies of our time, the Syrian tragedy, has had on the body. This project aims to develop and disseminate a contextual philosophy of the body by drawing upon psychoanalysis and literature in order to study (1) the mutilations that the body of refugee undergoes, (2) its attempt to resist those mutilations by creating real – but above all imaginary – prosthetics for itself, (3) and its incorporation of dead people, the morning of which is impossible. SYRBODY responds to one of the principal priorities of the Horizon 2020 work program 2018-2020, namely “Migration and the refugee crisis,” insofar as it aims to help understand the life of refugees and, in the same stroke, bring to light the injustice and horror that they are fleeing.SYRBODY proposes to combine fieldwork with Syrian refugees and conceptual and theoretical work. The fieldwork will be conducted mainly in Lebanon, which hosts the largest number of refugees in the Arab world. During the outgoing phase, I will carry out fieldwork in Lebanon in order to establish a solid basis of data concerning three elements: texts, audiovisual products, and interviews. The conceptual and theoretical work will be conducted mainly in France during the incoming phase. This project’s Beneficiary is the Université Paris-Diderot (the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Interdisciplinaires en Lettres Arts Cinéma), and its Partner Organization is the Institut Français du Proche-Orient in Beirut.