Teaching Freud / edited by Diane Jonte-Pace.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Jonte-Pace, Diane E. (Diane Elizabeth), 1951-

Series:

AAR teaching religious studies

American Academy of Religion teaching religious studies series.

American Academy of Religion teaching religious studies series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939.

Freud, Sigmund.

Psychiatry and religion.

Physical Description:

xi, 276 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2003.

Summary:

One of the central questions of the field of Religious Studies is "What is religion and how might we best understand it?" Sigmund Freud was surely a paradigmatic cartographer of this terrain. Among the first theorists to explore the unconscious fantasies, fears, and desires underlying religious ideas and practices, Freud can be considered one of the founders of the field. Yet Freud's legacy is deeply contested. With his reputation at perhaps its lowest point since he came to public attention a century ago, students often assume that Freud is sexist, dangerous, passe, and irrelevant to the study of religion. How can Freud be taught in this climate of critique and controversy? The fourteen contributors to this volume, all recognized scholars of religion and psychoanalysis, describe how they address Freud's contested legacy by "teaching the debates." They describe their courses on Freud and religion, their innovative pedagogical practices, and the creative ways they work with resistance.

Part I focuses on institutional and curricular contexts: contributors describe how they teach Freud at a Catholic and Jesuit undergraduate institution, a liberal seminary, and a large multicultural university. In Part II contributors describe courses structured around psychoanalytic interpretations of religious figures and phenomena: Ramakrishna, Jesus and Augustine, myth and mysticism. Part III focuses explicitly on courses structured around major debates over gender, Judaism, anti-Semitism, religion, and ritual. Part IV describes courses in which psychoanalysis is presented as a powerful pedagogy of transformation and insight.

Contents:

Introduction: Teaching Freud and Religion / Diane Jonte-Pace 3

I. Institutional and Curricular Contexts: Teaching Freud and Religion in Undergraduate Institutions, Graduate Programs, and Seminaries

1. Teaching Freud in the Language of Our Students: The Case of a Religiously Affiliated Undergraduate Institution / Diane Jonte-Pace 17

2. Freud and/as the Jew in the Multicultural University / Jay Geller 34

3. Teaching Freud in the Seminary / Kirk A. Bingaman 46

4. Teaching Freud, Teaching Freud's Values: A Graduate Course / Volney Gay 60

II. Teaching Freud as Interpreter of Religious Texts and Practices

5. "Let Him Rejoice in the Roseate Light!": Teaching Psychoanalysis and Mysticism / William Parsons 79

6. Teaching Freud While Interpreting Jesus / Donald Capps 100

7. Teaching Freud and Interpreting Augustine's Confessions / Sandra Lee Dixon 121

8. Psychoanalyzing Myth: From Freud to Winnicott / Robert A. Segal 137

III. Teaching the Controversies

9. Rethinking Freud: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Production of Scientific Thought / Janet Liebman Jacobs 165

10. Why Do We Have to Read Freud? / Carol Delaney 178

11. Teaching Freud in Religion and Culture Courses: A Dialogical Approach / Mary Ellen Ross 195

IV. Teaching the Teachings, Teaching the Practice

12. Teaching the Hindu Tantra with Freud: Transgression as Critical Theory and Mystical Technique / Jeffrey J. Kripal 213

13. The Challenge of Teaching Freud: Depth Psychology and Religious Ethics / Ernest Wallwork 238

14. Teaching Freud's Teachings / James E. Dittes 258.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0195157680

0195157699

OCLC:

49902056