Lacunae, Issue 21, December 2020 CONTAGION AND ITS OBJECTS: THE BODY AS AN OBJECT IN THE WORLD AND ITS RELATION TO THE UNCONSCIOUS Sarah Meehan O’Callaghan Abstract: In this paper, I will explore the topic of the body at the intersections of two contrasting perspectives, that of phenomenology and psychoanalysis, in light of the coronavirus pandemic. It is often at the points of tension and complexity between two subject-areas or disciplines that a mutually beneficial encounter can take place. In particular, this exploration will focus on the implications of considering the orientation of the body in light of the crisis of knowledge generated by the 2020 global Pandemic emergency. When a crisis occurs in the phenomenal world, shifts and alterations take place in meaning systems that impact on the body. From that perspective, I examine the body as both an object in the world and an object of fantasy, with the object a as the mediating concept of two worlds. ****** I regard my body, which is my point of view upon the world, as one of the objects of that world (Merleau- Ponty, 1945, p. 81) 122