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Freud: Conflict and Culture: Essays on His Life, Work, and Legacy
Freud Conflict and Culture Essays on His Life Work and Legacy Author:Michael Roth (Editor) Few figures have had as decisive and fundamental an impact on the course of modern cultural history as Sigmund Freud. Freudian theory and psychoanalytic thinking 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 t... more »o 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 ideas concerning 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.
Foreword / James H. Billington --
Introduction / Michael S. Roth --
"Nothing About the Totem Meal!": On Freud's Notes / Ilse Grubrich-Simitis --
Freud's World of Work / Patrick J. Mahony --
Sigmund Freud's Notes on Faces and Men: National Portrait Gallery, September 13, 1908 / Michael Molnar --
Portrait of a Dream Reader / John Forrester --
Having and Being: The Evolution of Freud's Oedipus Theory as a Moral Fable / John E. Toews --
Oedipus Politicus: Freud's Paradigm of Social Relations / Jose Brunner --
From Suggestion to Insight, from Hypnosis to Psychoanalysis / Harold P. Blum --
Freud's "Dora" Case: The Crucible of the Psychoanalytic Concept of Transference / Hannah S. Decker --
Psychoanalysis and the Historian / Peter Gay --
Freud's Reception in the United States / Edith Kurzweil --
Psychoanalysis: The American Experience / Robert Coles --
Freud, Film, and Culture / E. Ann Kaplan --
Cracking Jokes: A Brief Inquiry into Various Aspects of Humor / Art Spiegelman --
The Freud Controversy: What Is at Issue? / Frank Cioffi --
A Century of Psychoanalysis: Critical Retrospect and Prospect / Adolf Grunbaum --
Freud: Current Projections / Peter D. Kramer --
Strange Hearts: On the Paradoxical Liaison Between Psychoanalysis and Feminism / Muriel Dimen --
The Other Road: Freud as Neurologist / Oliver Sacks« less