Freudians and Schadenfreudians - by Jeffrey Berman (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Focusing on ten key writers and scholars who either passionately loved or gleefully loathed Freud, this book represents Freud's wide legacy, the reach of his ideas, their controversies, and their ability still to provoke, inspire, confound, outrage, and compel. Writers examined include D.H. Lawrence, Vladimir Nabokov, Harold Bloom and Deborah P. Britzman"--

Book Synopsis

Sigmund Freud can be a polarizing figure, beloved by many and despised by some. Focusing on eight key writers and scholars who either passionately loved or gleefully loathed Freud, this book represents Freud's wide legacy, the reach of his ideas, their controversies, and their ability still to provoke, inspire, confound, outrage, and compel.

The book begins by focusing on four highly prolific authors whose admiration for Freud is boundless: Lionel Trilling, Harold Bloom, Kurt R. Eissler, and Peter Gay. Berman then explores four more writers whose aim was not simply to debunk Freud and destroy his monstrous creation but to cast both into hell: D. H. Lawrence, Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Szasz, and Frederick Crews. Each chapter discusses the author's involvement with Freud, exploring the continuities and discontinuities of his or her writings, as well as offering snapshots of the writers, suggesting how their personal and professional lives were inextricably related.

Berman draws out some surprising commonalities between the Freudolaters and Schadenfreudians, going on to discuss the current state of psychoanalysis and the "psychoanalytic credos" by which contemporary analysts live.

Review Quotes

"Love him or hate him-or both, as Jeffrey Berman makes clear-Freud's legacy lives on. This unique and ranging exploration shows why we still have as much to learn from the unconscious as from our reactions to it." --Nathan Gorelick, Assistant Professor of English, Barnard College, USA

Love him or hate him-or both, as Jeffrey Berman makes clear-Freud's legacy lives on. This unique and ranging exploration shows why we still have as much to learn from the unconscious as from our reactions to it.
Nathan Gorelick, Assistant Professor of English, Barnard College, USA

About the Author

Jeffrey Berman is Distinguished Teaching Professor of English at the University at Albany, USA.