Freud: Conflict and Culture: Essays on his life, work, and legacy
Freud: Conflict and Culture: Essays on his life, work, and legacy Books
Product Description
Few figures have had as decisive and fundamental an impact on the course of modern
cultural history as Sigmund Freud. Freudian theory and psychoanalytic thought inform the ways in which we perceive ourselves and our society, and remain vital and relevant to some of our most pressing societal issues and concerns, from drug abuse and aggression to gender and sexuality. Yet few figures have inspired such sustained controversy and intense debate as Freud has, and his theoretical and cultural legacies continue to be hotly contested.
The exhibition “Sigmund Freud: Conflict and Culture,” mounted by the Library of Congress, explores the influence of Freud and psychoanalysis on twentieth-century culture and examines some of his central thoughts as regards the individual and society. Contemporary evaluations, emerging from changes in scientific knowledge and ideological priorities, have changed the way we view Freud’s contributions to our understanding of self and society. This volume, meant to reflect the lively and eclectic spirit of the show, is a gathering of variously challenging, erudite, and amusing essays by scholars, critics, and writers.
Grouped into four broad parts, the essays exemplify the diversity of approaches to Freudian theory and psychoanalysis. “Freud Writing and Working” concentrates on the sources he drew upon, his writing, rhetoric, and work habits. The pieces in “Interpretation, Suggestion, and Agency” deal with the evolution of Freud’s theories and technique. “Absorption and Diffusion” concerns the spread of psychoanalysis, its reception, and its effects on our culture. “Contested Legacies” presents a variety of perspectives on what Freud has left to our time, and the conflicts resulting from our shifting conceptions of gender, the mind, and science.
Freud: Conflict and Culture presents a fascinating spectrum of views on one of the most influential figures of the modern age.Amazon.com Review
Sigmund Freud’s legacy and reputation have been below attack for several decades, but when the Library of Congress originally plotted its Freud exhibition in 1996, their work seemed to have been conceived in total denial of that fact, and critics cried foul. After two years of tinkering, the exhibit was finally rescheduled to open in October 1998, and this coinciding collection of essays reflects the intervening debate. Librarian of Congress James Billington sets the wary editorial tone of a to some extent altered book in his foreword, speaking for example of the “now well-known” Freud-Fliess correspondence–although anyone who knows the history of that correspondence’s suppression, never mind its content, might well conclude that the more apt adjective is “infamous.”
Most of the 18 essays, but, remain tenderfooted and pious, especially those by analysts such as Ilse Gubrich-Simitis and Patrick Mahony. Hannah Decker’s article on the Dora case mentions critics in passing, but likewise sidesteps the more unpleasant issues, writing that Freud eventually “acknowledged his errors and showed he had made significant advances.” But many critics, unmentioned by Decker, have argued strenuously that there were no real advances; even if there were, it remains clear that they did not permit Freud to see his own behavior in an honest light. Some of the overtly Freudian contributors are more bendable and, by extension, more fascinating: Peter Gay on psychohistory, for example, and Robert Coles on the social idealism accompanying the thought that psychoanalysis was a key to resolving human conflict. And, as a result of the 1996 controversy, topnotch critics of Freud such as Adolf Grunbaum are now grudgingly represented. Still, Peter Kramer’s rueful retrospective may possibly serve as a coda not only to the volume but to the current state of Freud studies: “Our thought of Freud is composed of extreme images that barely intersect.” –Richard Farr
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