The Intellectual Biography of Freud with Joel Whitebook
A Book Presentation
In conjunction with New School for Social Research Dept. of Philosophy
The Intellectual Biography of Freud with Joel Whitebook
Thursday, October 31, 2019
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Wolff Conference Room (Room D1103)
6 E 16th St, New York, NY 10013
FREE EVENT
As Hegel observed, the “Objective Spirit” never stands still — an observation that is especially true today. As a result, members of every generation have to return to the classics and reappropriate them for themselves. This is what Joel Whitebook has done in his recently published intellectual biography of Freud (Cambridge University Press) that we will be discussing in this workshop.
Cutting through the tired clichés of the “Freud Wars,” the author presents us with a radically new portrait of the founder of psychoanalysis. Because Whitebook is a philosopher as well as a psychoanalyst, he has been able to integrate many of the profound transformations that have taken place in psychoanalytic theory and practice, infant research, gender studies, philosophy, and critical theory since Ernest Jones and Peter Gay published their canonical studies in the last century. Whitebook thereby succeeds in creating an account of Freud’s achievement that speaks to our cultural situation.
Furthermore, in addition to presenting the unfolding of Freud’s thinking in the context of the developments in his personal life and in the society at large, Whitebook has also succeeded in bringing this iconic man to life in compelling fashion. Where Freud often tried to protect himself by hiding behind the forbidding mask of an authoritarian patriarch and unbending rationalist, we come to see him as the vulnerable, complex, and all-too-human person that he was.
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Presenter:
Joel Whitebook, Ph.D.
Moderators:
Noelle McAfee, Ph.D.
Jeanne Wolff-Bernstein, Ph.D.