Freud, Race, and Gender

By Sander L. Gilman

Book Overview

A Jew in a violently anti-Semitic world, Sigmund Freud was forced to cope with racism even in the "serious" medical literature of the fin de si cle, which described Jews as inherently pathological and sexually degenerate. In this provocative book, Sander L. Gilman argues that Freud's internalizing of these images of racial difference shaped the questions of psychoanalysis. Examining a variety of scientific writings, Gilman discusses the prevailing belief that male Jews were "feminized," as stated outright by Jung and others, and concludes that Freud dealt with his anxiety about himself as a Jew by projecting it onto other cultural "inferiors"--such as women. Gilman's fresh view of the origins of psychoanalysis challenges those who separate Freud's revolutionary theories from his Jewish identity.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691032459
• ISBN13: 9780691032450
• Release Date: June 1993
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 290 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 0.8" x 6.5"