Traces of the transplantation complex in Jean-Luc Nancy’s body-ontological work

Lung transplantation is a complex psychodynamic process. In a prior study, the authors investigated 40 patients who had just undergone lung transplant operations. Using the analysis of a dream, they elaborated what they termed the "transplantation complex". They also demonstrated that references are made to this transplantation complex in the further interviews of the total sample. In this paper, they examine whether aspects of the transplantation complex in the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy's essay "The Intruder", in which he described his own heart transplant operation, can also be found in the eponymous work by the filmmaker Claire Denis. In fact, the themes of the transplantation complex appear both in Nancy's essay and in Claire Denis's film (such as fantasies that the donor is killed, that the recipient's body is broken open and that the organs or the donor are devoured). The article closes with some explanations concerning Nancy's "body ontology".