Pandemic mitologies: what does Zizek silence? Zízek, Han, Montero: critical approaches

Abstract

In this article we intend to reflect on the concept of a pandemic, closely linked to that of a virus, in close relation to the ideas that Slavoj Zizek outlines in his book Pandemic. Covid-19 shakes the world (2020). For this, we will discuss the economic and subjectivizing implications of the processes that opened the isolation, the political and pharmacological interventions in the communities. From an ecocritical point of view, we will discuss Zizek's hypotheses based on Rosa Montero's columns in El País during the years 2020/2022 and Byung-Chul Han´s reflections. The central hypothesis is that the political economic dilemma that frames the pandemic cannot ignore the new ways in which subjectivities are constructed. The ways in which the monstrous is named under the Covid metaphor leads us to reflect on the phenomenon of what is silenced, metaphorized or used to make political subjects, such as women and children, invisible.