The Case of Sigmund Freud: Medicine and Identity at the Fin de Siècle

by Sander L. Gilman

Overview

In The Case of Sigmund Freud, Sander Gilman traces the "medicalization" of Jewishness in the science and medicine of turn-of-the-century Vienna, and the ways in which Jewish physicians responded to the effort to incorporate racist biological literature into medical practice. Focusing on the new science of psychoanalysis, Gilman looks at the strategic devices Sigmund Freud employed to detach himself from the stigma of being Jewish and shows how Freud's work in psychoanalysis evolved in response to the biological discourse of the time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801849749
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	12/01/1994
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.71(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sander L. Gilman is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Humane Studies at Cornell University and professor of the history of psychiatry at the Cornell Medical College. [confirm]

What People are Saying About This

David James Fisher

Gilman is unrelenting in documenting how the biological literature of the nineteenth century is racist to its core. A stimulating and provocative book.
— David James Fisher, UCLA

From the Publisher

Gilman is unrelenting in documenting how the biological literature of the 19th century was racist to its core. A stimulating and provocative book.
—David James Fisher, UCLA

Historians, no matter what their field, ignore Sander Gilman's work at their peril.
—George L. Mosse, University of Wisconsin

George L. Mosse

Historians, no matter what their field, ignore Sander Gilman's work at their peril.

— George L. Mosse, University of Wisconsin

Editorial Reviews

Mr. Gilman's work is the most convincing account of how Freud's anxiety about being Jewish is reflected in his work. After reading Mr. Gilman's exhaustive treatment, one cannot help seeing Freud as struggling to formulate a response to the Viennese notions of Jewishness in which he was inescapably steeped.
—New York Times

Gilman [is] one of the most original and stimulating cultural historians of his generation . . . Reminds us that the best cultural history does not bring us comfortingly nearer to the past, but brings its distance from us to life.
—New Statesman and Society

From the Publisher

Mr. Gilman's work is the most convincing account of how Freud's anxiety about being Jewish is reflected in his work. After reading Mr. Gilman's exhaustive treatment, one cannot help seeing Freud as struggling to formulate a response to the Viennese notions of Jewishness in which he was inescapably steeped.

New York Times

Gilman [is] one of the most original and stimulating cultural historians of his generation . . . Reminds us that the best cultural history does not bring us comfortingly nearer to the past, but brings its distance from us to life.

New Statesman and Society

Traces the construction of Jewishness as a biological flaw in the science and medicine of Vienna at the turn of the century, and how Jewish physicians responded to the effort to incorporate the image into medical practice. Focuses on Freud, showing how he tried to detach himself from the stigma of being Jewish, and how his psychoanalysis evolved in the context of the biological discourse. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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