Freud and the Non-European: (Essential Psychoanalysis)

‘Said’s reading of Freud's reading of the history of the Jewish people is undeniably brilliant’ Times Literary Supplement In this influential lecture, Edward Said explores Freud’s foundational work Moses and Monotheism to rethink the relationship between identity, politics and psychoanalysis. The result is a study illuminating both Freud’s thinking and that of Said, on whom the great psychoanalyst was a formative influence. Was Moses Jewish or an Egyptian? The question undermines any simple ascription of identity, highlighting the limits of these categories. Said suggests that such an unresolved, nuanced sense of identity might, if embodied in political reality, form the basis for a new understanding between Jews and Palestinians. In contrast, Israel's relentless march towards an exclusively Jewish state denies any sense of a more complex, inclusive past. With an introduction by Christopher Bollas and a response by Jacqueline Rose.

About the Author :
Edward Said (1935-2003) was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. The author of more than twenty books, his most celebrated publications include Orientalism; The End of the Peace Process; Power, Politics, and Culture; and the memoir Out of Place.

Review :
The kind of intellectual and moral subtlety that Said calls for is quickly trampled upon as nations are made and remade. But if it doesn't shape momentous events, it does help record them more scrupulously. Said's influence grows more fruitfully (if slowly) on fellow academics and writers, who can no longer hope to explain the contemporary world by putting the adjective 'ancient' before the noun 'hatred'; they have to work towards a better sense of the ever-changing historical conditions under which identities appear so eternal. Said's treatment is though-provoking and addresses complex issues surrounding a work composed near the end of Freud's lifetime. Said provides an intriguing critique of Freud's work that is complemented by Rose's commentary. His reading of Freud's reading of the history of the Jewish people is undeniably brilliant, and persuades the reader yet further that the attempts by the Likudniks and fundamentalist Zionists to harden Judaism into one particular model of Zionism tied to one particular plot of land is both intellectually flawed and a betrayal of Judaism's pluralist history. I heard ... Edward Said give Freud and the Non-European as a lecture at the Freud Museum in London ... now it stands in grief and memory of that dear, good and great man as my pre-eminent book of the year. The voice of the late Edward Said can still be heard in all its trenchant vitality.