Freud to Lacan in Italy: the impact of phenomenology
Aristodemou, Maria (2011) Freud to Lacan in Italy: the impact of phenomenology. In: International Symposium on Phenomenology, July 2011, Perugia, Italy. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Although Freud was a frequent visitor to Italy, and famously used the topography of Rome as a metaphor for mapping mental life, it wasn’t until 1901, that is, after publication of The Interpretation of Dreams, that he finally succeeded in reaching Rome. Freud’s inhibition, and inspiration, by Rome will be part of this paper. Lacan’s visit to Rome in 1953, was also auspicious, having been preceded by a split between the Paris Psychoanalytic Association (SPP) and the newly formed French Psychoanalytic Association (SPF) which Lacan had helped found. Lacan chose the occasion of his now well-known Rome Discourse to remonstrate against the turn Freud’s followers had taken, reserving his scathing and mocking criticism for ego psychologists in particular, before settling to the task of heralding his own return to Freud. What took place in the half-century or so between the two men’s visits? A number of intellectual developments of course had intervened, most notably the publication of Ferdinand de Saussure’s General Course in Structural Linguistics (1916) without which there probably would have been no Lacan. A less discussed yet also influential development to have reached Lacan’s Paris came not from Switzerland but from Germany and in particular from the teaching of Martin Heidegger. This paper will use a case example from one of Lacan’s much maligned ego psychology colleagues, Ernst Kris, and Lacan’s compulsion to repeat this example, to address the issue of Lacan’s debt to Heidegger. The “fresh brains case” as it has come to be called, will be used to explore Lacan’s taste for others thinkers, other ideas and other brains: the fresh brains served by Heidegger in particular.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
|---|---|
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Law School |
| Research Centres and Institutes: | Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics (MAMSIE) |
| Depositing User: | Sarah Hall |
| Date Deposited: | 25 Feb 2016 16:33 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 17:22 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/14502 |
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