I currently teach political economy and sociology of work at the University of Sydney.
My main area of research is the political economy of Korean capitalism with an emphasis on labour and subjectivity. I have a specific interest in value-form analysis, Lacanian psychoanalysis and aesthetics.
Central to my research is the study of workers' writings such as autobiographies and memoirs. Based on these texts, I attempt to understand the sources of workers' afflictions in capitalist society by focusing on the contradiction between their conscious and unconscious practices.
I was awarded a PhD in Political Economy from the University of Sydney under the supervision of Prof. Adam David Morton in 2022. My PhD thesis, titled The Developmental Unconscious: Labour and Enjoyment in Korea’s Developmental Era, is currently being adapted into a monograph.
I can be contacted at christiancaiconte@gmail.com.
News and updates
September 2024 - My analysis of the 24th Biennale of Sydney was published online in issue 18 of Arena Quarterly.
April 2024 - My paper titled "Yŏgong Between the Compulsion of Production and Modern Desire" is now available in the latest issue of Situations: Cultural Studies in the Asian Context. It discusses the precarious life of Korean women workers, the psychoanalytic categories of drive and desire, and the concept of the "developmental unconscious," which I first proposed in my doctoral thesis.
March 2024 - My contribution to a book forum on Global Libidinal Economy (2023) was published online in Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory. My commentary is titled "Beware of the Libido Fetish: Assessing the Historicity of Unconscious Desire" and calls into question the book's philosophical understanding of desire through the lens of value-form analysis.