Psychoanalysis, Monotheism, and Morality: The Sigmund Freud Museum Symposia 2009–2011(Figures of the Unconscious)

In this volume, renowned experts in psychoanalysis reflect on the relationship between psychoanalysis and religion, in particular presenting various controversial interpretations of the question if and to what extent monotheism semantically and structurally fits psychoanalytic insights. Some essays augment traditional religious critiques of Freudianism with later religio-philosophical theories on, for example, femininity. Others explore the relation between psychopathology and morality from the Freudian premise that psychopathology shows in an excessive way aspects or mechanisms of the human psyche that constitute our subjectivity, moral capacities, and behavior. Contributors: Andreas De Block, KU Leuven-University of Leuven; Fethi Benslama, University of Paris Diderot; Sergio Benvenuto, ISTC, Rome; Gohar Homayounpour, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran; Felix de Mendelssohn, Sigmund Freud University, Vienna; Julia Kristeva, University of Paris Diderot; Lode Lauwaert, KU Leuven-University of Leuven; Siamak Movahedi, University of Massachusetts; Wolfgang Muller-Funk, University of Vienna; Gilles Ribault, University of Paris Diderot; Celine Surprenant, University of Sussex; Inge Scholz-Strasser, Sigmund Freud Foundation; Herman Westerink, University of Vienna; Joel Whitebook, Columbia University; Moshe Zuckermann, Tel Aviv University

Table of Contents:
Preface Inge Scholz-Strasser Introduction Wolfgang Müller-Funk and Herman Westerink Part I: The Forces of Monotheism Moses' Heritage. Psychoanalysis between Anthropology, History and Enlightenment Wolfgang Müller-Funk The Jewish Tradition in Sigmund Freud's Work Felix de Mendelssohn Islam in Light of Psychoanalysis Fethi Benslama Part II: Religion and its Critiques Freud's Conception of Religion within the Context of the Modernist Critical Discourse Moshe Zuckermann The Need to Believe and the Desire to Know, Today Julia Kristeva Part III: Femininity and the Figure of the Father Monotheism and the 'Repudiation of Femininity' Joel Whitebook Fort!/Da! Through the Chador: The Paradox of the Woman's Invisibility and Visibility Siamak Movahedi and Gohar Homayounpour Part IV: Morality The Two Sources of Morality in Freud's Work Gilles Ribault On Moral Responsibility: A Freudian Perspective Herman Westerink Pathology and Moral Courage in Freud's Early Case Histories Céline Surprenant Part V: Law and Perversion Does Perversion Need the Law? Sergio Benvenuto Outlawed by Nature? A Critique of Some Current Psychiatric and Psychoanalytic Theories of Sexual Perversion Andreas De Block and Lode Lauwaert Bibliography Notes on the Contributors Index of Names

About the Author :
Wolfgang Muller-Funk is Professor of Cultural Studies at the Department of European and Comparative Literature and Language Studies (University of Vienna) and research coordinator of his faculty. Inge Scholz-Strasser is Chairwoman of the Sigmund Freud Foundation and Director of the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna. Herman Westerink is Assistant Professor of Psychology of Religion, Protestant Theological Faculty, University of Vienna.