Our Two-Track Minds

Robert A. Paul is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emory University, USA, and an Adjunct Professor in the Emory University Psychoanalytic Institute and the Emory Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He is the author of three books, including Moses and Civilization: The Meaning Behind Freud’s Myth (1996), which won the Heinz Hartmann Award in Psychoanalysis, the Bryce Boyer Prize in Psychoanalytic Anthropology, and the Jewish Book Award in Jewish Thought. Dr. Paul is one of a very few people trained both in anthropology and in clinical psychoanalysis.

• Introduction: The Stream and the RoadPart I. DROSS INTO GOLD: Recuperating Freud’s Social Theory1. Freud’s Theory of Society2. Biology and Culture in Civilization and Its Discontents3. Yes, the Primal Crime Did Take PlacePART II. LIKE RABBITS OR LIKE ROBOTS? Sexual versus Non-Sexual Reproduction in the Western Tradition4. The Genealogy of Civilization5. Sons or Sonnets?6. The Pygmalion Complex PART III. OUR TWO TRACK-MINDS: A Dual Inheritance Perspective on Some Classic Psychoanalytic Issues7. Incest Avoidance: Oedipal and Preoedipal, Natural and Cultural8. Sexuality: Biological Fact or Cultural Construction? 9. Consciousness, Language, and Dual InheritanceReferencesIndex

Based on his dual inheritance theory, Robert Paul provides us with an excellent integration of contemporary psychoanalytic thinking, evolutionary theory, and cultural anthropology, without minimizing the contributions of each of them. This thought-provoking book shows ways to bridge the gap between the disciplines and how this opens up new insights and approaches for psychoanalytic theory-building.