On the Edge of the Abyss - by Clémence Boulouque (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Published on the cusp of 1900, Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams set out to illuminate the workings of the unconscious through the analysis of dreams. Freud's notion of the unconscious would quickly become hegemonic in twentieth-century scientific thought. By Freud's time, however, several generations of philosophers had been developing the idea of the unconscious. On the Edge of the Abyss untangles the pre-Freudian concept of the unconscious in Jewish thought and reveals how the unconscious became part of public discourse in the long nineteenth century. First described by Schelling as an abyss from which creation springs forth, the pre-Freudian unconscious was inspired by kabbalistic motifs and inflected with tropes derived from Jewish mysticism. Jewish thinkers engaged this porous notion as a mode for reflecting on the psychological and political meaning of otherness and on the creation of a polity that allowed for coexistence. As Clâemence Boulouque shows, Jewish reception of the unconscious before Freud is a microcosm of Jewish emancipation, telling a mulilayered intellectual and cultural history of a minority reappropriating its own tradition in an early instance of self-affirmation"--

Book Synopsis

A history of the unconscious in public discourse before Freud and its significance for Jewish emancipation.

When Sigmund Freud published his theory of the unconscious, in 1899, he popularized an idea that had fascinated generations of Jewish philosophers before him. In this book, Clémence Boulouque charts the development of the pre-Freudian unconscious from subcultural inquiry to dominant discourse during the long nineteenth century. Although Freud's scientific notion differed from Schelling's mythical description of the abyss from which creation springs, its resonance with older ideas was celebrated as an opportunity to express specifically Jewish contributions to modernity. Indeed, Boulouque shows that the pre-Freudian unconscious emerged from conversations in Jewish mysticism about otherness and coexistence. In the hopeful years before World War I, Boulouque argues, such reflections offered the possibility of emancipation not only to Jews but to all.

Review Quotes

"Boulouque demonstrates the emergence of the idea of the unconscious out of complex inter-cultural dialectics, including between Lurianic Kabbalah and German Idealism, religious and secular thinkers, Emersonian Transcendentalism and American Jewish innovators, German Jewish émigrés and contemporary rabbis. She explores this story's implications for ethnic and national identity as well as for power relationships between majorities and minorities. This work is a major contribution to central issues across the humanities today."--Nathaniel Berman, Brown University

"In On the Edge of the Abyss, Boulouque drills deep into modern Jewish thought to excavate a variety of fascinating and suggestive renderings of the unconscious before Freud. She takes the reader on a circuitous journey across a wide swath of sources, quilting together many cases where the unconscious emerged from the depths of Jewish thinking. On this subject, nothing has been done before. Highly recommended."--Shaul Magid, Dartmouth University

"Is there anything new to say about the unconscious? This remarkable book's answer is affirmative. With subtle intelligence and vast erudition, Boulouque exposes the kabbalistic roots of the unconscious, and argues that the pre-Freudian unconscious is a better guide than the Freudian in the exploration of otherness."--Paul Franks, Yale University