PhD defence Rasmus Johnsen

In order to obtain the PhD degree Rasmus Johnsen, Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies, has submitted his thesis entitled:

‘The Great Health of Melancholy – A Study of the Pathologies of Performativity’

The thesis 'The Great Health of Melancholy' is an attempt to create a philosophical perspective on issues like stress and depression in contemporary society. Through a reading of three motifs in the broad and colourful history of melancholy - melancholy in Antiquity, Acedia in the Middle Ages and neurasthenia around the turn of the 19th century - it engages with themes associated with modern day lifestyles: management of the Self, self-development, self-regulation and the pathologies of failure in an attempt to understand the subjectivity of contemporary individuality.

The defence will be of interest to anyone interested in how the notion of 'the self' is circulated today in the social contexts of work and performativity.

Supervisor:

Professor Sverre Raffnsøe

Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, CBS

Assessment Committee:

Associate Professor Bent Meier Sørensen (Chairman) Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, CBS

Professor Knut Ove Eliassen Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

Professor Peter Case

Bristol Business School, UK

The PhD thesis is available here: http://openarchive.cbs.dk/cbsweb/handle/10398/7929

Doctoral School of Organisation and Management Studies will host small a reception after the defence.