Research Catalog

Title

The ancient unconscious : psychoanalysis and the ancient text / Vered Lev Kenaan.

Author

Lev Kenaan, Vered

Publication

• Oxford, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, 2019.
• ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Series Statement

Classics in theory

Uniform Title

Classics in theory.

Subject

• Subconsciousness in literature
• Classical literature > History and criticism
• Classical literature > Psychological aspects

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-213) and index.

Call Number

JFD 19-3970

ISBN

• 9780198827795
• 0198827792

LCCN

2019931804

OCLC

1103998976

Author

Lev Kenaan, Vered, author.

Title

The ancient unconscious : psychoanalysis and the ancient text / Vered Lev Kenaan.

Publisher

Oxford, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, 2019.

Copyright Date

©2019

Edition

First edition.

Description

x, 228 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Classics in theory

Classics in theory.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-213) and index.

Summary

In the field of classical studies, the psychoanalytic construction of the unconscious is rarely regarded as a fruitful methodological concept. Commonly understood as a modern conceptual invention rather than the discovery of a psychic reality, the notion of the unconscious is often criticized as an anachronistic lens, one that ineluctably subjects ancient experience to modern patterns of thought. The Ancient Unconscious seeks to challenge this ambivalent theoretical disposition toward the psychoanalytic concept and reclaim the value of the unconscious as a methodological tool for the study of ancient texts by transforming our understanding of what the unconscious means, the way it operates, and how it relates to textual hermeneutics. It considers the debate over whether the ancients had an unconscious as an invitation to rethink the relationship between antiquity and modernity, investigating the meaning of textuality through contact between historical moments that have no priority under the law of chronology: associations and connections between the past and its future - including the present - belong to the sphere of the unconscious, which is primarily employed here in order to study the inherent, often hidden, links that bind modernity to classical antiquity and modern to ancient experiences. Drawing on an incisive examination of the complicated, often conflicted, relationship between classical studies and psychoanalytic theory, the volume aims to explain why the concept of the unconscious is in fact inseparable from, and crucial for, the study of the ancient text and, more generally, the methodology of classical philology.

Research Call Number

JFD 19-3970