Severing Work: A Hauntology

Abstract

Dan Erickson’s television drama, Severance (Apple TV, 2022-present) offers a fertile site for interrogating spectral metaphors of identity within narrative film and television. Characters opt for brain surgery such that they may go to work, but then not remember their toil once their day has concluded. The Lumon corporation uncouples public workers from their private selves, marketing the process as a way of promoting a better work/family balance within the early 21st century neoliberal economy.