Freud and Monotheism: Moses and the Violent Origins of Religion

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Freud and Monotheism

Moses and the Violent Origins of Religion

Edited by: and
With contributions by: , , , , , , , , , and

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2018

About this book

Over the last few decades, vibrant debates regarding post-secularism have found inspiration and provocation in the works of Sigmund Freud. A new interest in the interconnection of psychoanalysis, religion and political theory has emerged, allowing Freud’s illuminating examination of the religious and mystical practices in “Obsessive Neurosis and Religious Practices,” and the exegesis of the origins of ethics in religion in Totem and Taboo, to gain currency in recent debates on modernity. In that context, the pivotal role of Freud’s masterpiece, Moses and Monotheism, is widely recognized.

Freud and Monotheism brings together fundamental new contributions to discourses on Freud and Moses, as well as new research at the intersections of theology, political theory, and history in Freud’s psychoanalytic work. Highlighting the broad impact of Moses and Monotheism across the humanities, the contributors hail from such diverse disciplines as philosophy, comparative literature, cultural studies, German studies, Jewish studies and psychoanalysis.

Jan Assmann and Richard Bernstein, whose books pioneered the earlier debate that initiated the Freud and Moses discourse, seize the opportunity to revisit and revise their groundbreaking work. Gabriele Schwab, Gilad Sharvit, Karen Feldman, and Yael Segalovitz engage with the idiosyncratic, eccentric and fertile nature of the book as a Spӓtstil, and explore radical interpretations of Freud’s literary practice, theory of religion and therapeutic practice. Ronald Hendel offers an alternative history for the Mosaic discourse within the biblical text, Catherine Malabou reconnects Freud’s theory of psychic phylogenesis in Moses and Monotheism to new findings in modern biology and Willi Goetschel relocates Freud in the tradition of works on history that begins with Heine, while Joel Whitebook offers important criticisms of Freud’s main argument about the advance in intellectuality that Freud attributes to Judaism.

The contributors are leading scholars of religion, philosophy, literature, psychoanalysis, Jewish Studies, and Egyptology.

Author / Editor information

Contributor: Gilad Sharvit Gilad Sharvit is a Townsend Fellow at the Townsend Center for the Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley. --- Contributor: Karen S. Feldman Karen S. Feldman is Associate Professor of German at the University of California, Berkeley. She is author of Binding Words: Conscience and Rhetoric in Hobbes, Hegel and Heidegger. --- Contributor: Catherine Malabou Catherine Malabou is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, and Visiting Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University. Her many books include Stop Thief! Anarchism and Philosophy (Polity, 2023), Pleasure Erased: The Clitoris Unthought (Polity, 2022), The Ontology of the Accident: An Essay on Destructive Plasticity (Polity, 2012), The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain Damage (Fordham, 2012), and What Should We Do with Our Brain? (Fordham, 2008). --- Contributor: Gilad Sharvit Gilad Sharvit is a Townsend Fellow at the Townsend Center for the Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

There really is nothing new about anti-Semitism in the age of today’s white ethno-nationalism. Freud and Montheism brings the debate about Sigmund Freud’s last work on the origins of antisemitism up to the present day. Gilad Sharvit and Karen Feldman have compiled a brilliant selection of essays examining the historical and philosophical underpinnings of Moses and Monotheism by the leading specialists on this complex and eternally engaging text. They illustrate quite well the complexity of understanding anti-Semitism from the standpoint of the victim of the Nazis in the 1940s or of the alt-right today. A must add to any library on the history of anti-Semitism.---Sander Gilman, Emory University

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Frontmatter
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Contents
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Introduction
1
Gilad Sharvit and Karen S. Feldman

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1. “Why [the Jews] Have Attracted This Undying Hatred”
27
Richard J. Bernstein

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2. Geistigkeit: A Problematic Concept
46
Joel Whitebook

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3. Heine and Freud: Deferred Action and the Concept of History
65
Willi Goetschel

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4. Freud’s Moses: Murder, Exile, and the Question of Belonging
87
Gabriele Schwab

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5. A Leap of Faith into Moses: Freud’s Invitation to Evenly Suspended Attention
108
Yael Segalovitz

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6. Freud, Sellin, and the Murder of Moses
138
Jan Assmann

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7. Creating the Jews: Mosaic Discourse in Freud and Hosea
157
Ronald Hendel

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8. Is Psychic Phylogenesis Only a Phantasy? New Biological Developments in Trauma Inheritance
177
Catherine Malabou

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Contributors
219

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Index
223

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Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

July 20, 2020

eBook ISBN:

9780823280056

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823280056

eBook ISBN: 9780823280056

Keywords for this book

Freud; Moses; Monotheism; Cultural Memory; Trauma; Myth; Historiography; Egypt; Anti-Semitism; Holocaust; Religion

Audience(s) for this book

For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research

Fordham University Press

Freud and Monotheism

Overview

About this book

Author / Editor information

Reviews

Topics

Table of contents

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

1. “Why [the Jews] Have Attracted This Undying Hatred”

2. Geistigkeit: A Problematic Concept

3. Heine and Freud: Deferred Action and the Concept of History

4. Freud’s Moses: Murder, Exile, and the Question of Belonging

5. A Leap of Faith into Moses: Freud’s Invitation to Evenly Suspended Attention

6. Freud, Sellin, and the Murder of Moses

7. Creating the Jews: Mosaic Discourse in Freud and Hosea

8. Is Psychic Phylogenesis Only a Phantasy? New Biological Developments in Trauma Inheritance

Contributors

Index

Bibliographic data