Speaking the unspeakable : religion, misogyny, and the uncanny mother in Freud's cultural texts / Diane Jonte-Pace.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

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

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939.

Freud, Sigmund.

Psychoanalysis and religion.

Feminist psychology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (201 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this bold rereading of Freud's cultural texts, Diane Jonte-Pace uncovers an undeveloped "counterthesis," one that repeatedly interrupts or subverts his well-known Oedipal masterplot. The counterthesis is evident in three clusters of themes within Freud's work: maternity, mortality, and immortality; Judaism and anti-Semitism; and mourning and melancholia. Each of these clusters is associated with "the uncanny" and with death and loss. Appearing most frequently in Freud's images, metaphors, and illustrations, the counterthesis is no less present for being unspoken--it is, indeed, "unspeakable." The "uncanny mother" is a primary theme found in Freud's texts involving fantasies of immortality and mothers as instructors in death. In other texts, Jonte-Pace finds a story of Jews for whom the dangers of assimilation to a dominant Gentile culture are associated unconsciously with death and the uncanny mother. The counterthesis appears in the story of anti-Semites for whom the "uncanny impression of circumcision" gives rise not only to castration anxiety but also to matriphobia. It also surfaces in Freud's ability to mourn the social and religious losses accompanying modernity, and his inability to mourn the loss of his own mother. The unfolding of Freud's counterthesis points toward a theory of the cultural and unconscious sources of misogyny and anti-Semitism in "the unspeakable." Jonte-Pace's work opens exciting new vistas for the feminist analysis of Freud's intellectual legacy.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Introduction. Misogyny and Religion under Analysis: Masterplot and Counterthesis in Tension

1. The Counterthesis in "The Dream Book" and "A Religious Experience": The Beginning and End of Interpretation

2. Death, Mothers, and the Afterlife: At Home in the Uncanny

3. Jewishness and the (Un)Canny: "Death and Us Jews"

4. The Sources of Anti-Semitism: Circumcision, Abjection, and the Uncanny Mother

5. Modernity, Melancholia, and the (In)Ability to Mourn: When Throne and Altar Are in Danger

Epilogue. Guessing at What Lies Beneath

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-181) and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612758980

9780520927698

0520927699

9781597349116

1597349119

9781282758988

1282758985

OCLC:

475929005