Mourning Freud

Madelon Sprengnether is a poet, memoirist, and literary critic, and Regents Professor Emerita of English at the University of Minnesota, USA. She has published numerous books in the field of feminist, psychoanalytic criticism and theory, including The (M)other Tongue: Essays in Feminist Psychoanalytic Interpretation (1985) and the pathbreaking The Spectral Mother: Freud, Feminism and Psychoanalysis (1990). In addition to her academic publishing, she is the author of several books of poetry and memoir, the latest of which, titled Great River Road (2015), views the process of memoir writing through the lens of contemporary neuroscience. She also blogs for Psychology Today.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Insight and BlindnessBiography and Theory1: Reading Freud’s Life2: Mourning Freud3: Freud, Irma, and the Dream of PsychoanalysisTransitions4: Undoing Incest5: Freud as Memoirist6: Literature and PsychoanalysisGhosts and Ancestors7: Reflections on Melancholia and MourningConclusionBibliographyIndex

Neither a Freud idealizer nor a Freud basher, Sprengnether offers an intriguing discussion of one of the major areas of psychoanalytic theory ... Sprengnether is well qualified to undertake this ambitious project … Sprengnether, well versed in psychoanalysis, deconstructionism, and feminism, brings to Freudian studies an uncommon knowledge of ‘high theory’ and a notable capacity for close reading ... [A] valuable addition to the vast scholarship on a man who continues to disturb the world’s peace. The scholarly footnotes are fascinating, revealing not only Sprengnether’s erudition but also her generosity in paying tribute to scholars who have influenced her thinking.