Literature and Psychoanalysis: The Question of Reading: Otherwise

by Shoshana Felman (Editor)

Overview

The relationship between literature and psychoanalysis has never been one of equals. Traditional (particularly in American tradition), literature has been relegated to the position of foil for its more abstract counterpart—a mere body of language to be explained through the theoretical authority of psychoanalysis and, through its need to be interpreted, to add justification anjd pretige to Freudian theory.

Such a relationship has always bothered literary critics—who feel that psychoanalysis refuses to even to recognize literature as such—and, of late, it has begun to both some scholars of psychoanalysis, as well. This volume proposes a fundamental reorientation of the relationship between literature and psychoanalysis, arguing that neither discipline dominates the othr. Instead, the contributors assert that the subjects traverse each other's boundaries and that their relationship is one of give and take.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801827549
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	03/01/1982
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Shoshana Felman is Thomas E. Donnelly Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Yale University. Her many books include Literature and Psychoanalysis: The Question of Reading: Otherwise, Jacques Lacan and the Adventures of Insight Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Culture, and Writing and Madnes.

Table of Contents

Foreword to Johns Hopkins Edition
Foreword to Yale French Studies Edition
To Open the Question
Chapter 1. The Practice of Reading: Psychoanalysis with Literature
Chapter 2. The Practice of Reading: Literature with Psychoanalysis
Chapter 3. The Practice of Writing and Psychoanalysis
Chapter 4. The Statue of Theoretical Discourse: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, LIterature
Contributors

Editorial Reviews

It remains the best work on literature and psychoanalysis, essential reading for anyone interested in pursuing the relations between the two or wanting to know about the possible effects of the French re-reading of Freud for a reading of literature.
—Year's Work in English Studies

Even the strictest clinical focus could profit from these essays, since there is always more to be learned about the complexities of language and narrative form, the colors and shapes in the language of the self struggling free of its silences.
—Modern Psychoanalysis

From the Publisher

"It remains the best work on literature and psychoanalysis, essential reading for anyone interested in pursuing the relations between the two or wanting to know about the possible effects of the French re-reading of Freud for a reading of literature."

Year's Work in English Studies

"Even the strictest clinical focus could profit from these essays, since there is always more to be learned about the complexities of language and narrative form, the colors and shapes in the language of the self struggling free of its silences."

Modern Psychoanalysis