Freud and the Non-European - Hardcover

Said, Edward W.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1859845002 ISBN 13: 9781859845004

Publisher: Verso, 2003

Synopsis

Using an impressive array of material from literature, archaeology and social theory, Edward Said explores the profound implications of Freud’s Moses and Monotheism for Middle-East politics today. The resulting book reveals Said’s abiding interest in Freud’s work and its important influence on his own.

He proposes that Freud’s assumption that Moses was an Egyptian undermines any simple ascription of a pure identity, and further that identity itself cannot be thought or worked through without the recognition of the limits inherent in it. Said suggests that such an unresolved, nuanced sense of identity might, if embodied in political reality, have formed, or might still form, the basis for a new understanding between Jews and Palestinians. Instead, Israel’s relentless march towards an exclusively Jewish state denies any sense of a more complex, inclusive past.

About this title

About the Author

Edward W. Said (1935–2003) was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of Literature and of Kings College Cambridge, his celebrated works include Orientalism, The End of the Peace Process, Power, Politics and Culture, and the memoir Out of Place. He is also the editor, with Christopher Hitchens, of Blaming the Victims, published by Verso. New Left Review published <a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2481">an obituary</a> in Nov–Dec 2003.

Jacqueline Rose is Professor of English at Queen Mary University of London. Her books include Sexuality in the Field of Vision; The Question of Zion ; and the novel Albertine.

Reviews

This little book is really an essay that Said (Culture and Imperialism; etc.) delivered under the auspices of the Freud Museum in London, stretched out with Christopher Bollas's unrevised introduction ("...I am pleased to welcome all of you to this important occasion") and critic Jacqueline Rose's response-and with double spacing. Nevertheless, it's worthwhile. In excavating Freud's historical musings on the common origins of Jews and Palestinians, Said makes a case for a common culture of the Levant, one that could serve, in a very direct way, as part of finding a path to peace. Ammiel Alcalay's After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture makes a fuller case, but Freud has historical cache. Highlighting what Said calls Freud's "equivocation" on Zionism is an obviously loaded move, but Said handles it with intellectual care and equanimity, and with the sort of dry humor that he repeatedly finds in Freud himself. If readers can ignore the aggressive flap copy ("Israel's relentless march to an exclusively Jewish state denies any sense of a more complex, inclusive past"), they will find Said's Freud complex and inclusive.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Verso
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1859845002
• ISBN 13: 9781859845004
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 108