Sigmund Freud as a Critical Social Theorist

Dustin J. Byrd, Ph.D. (2017), Michigan State University, is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at The University of Olivet. He is the Founder and Co-Director of the Institute for Critical Social Theory, and the Editor-in-Chief of Ekpyrosis Press. He has published numerous monographs, edited volumes, and articles of the subjects of Psychoanalysis, political philosophy, Critical Theory, and the Critical Theory of Religion. His latest books include: Syed Hussein Alatas and Critical Social Theory: Decolonizing the Captive Mind (Brill, 2022); The Dark Charisma of Donald Trump: Political Psychology and the MAGA Movement (Ekpyrosis Press, 2023); The Frankfurt School and the Dialectics of Religion: Translating Critical Faith into Critical Theory (Ekpyrosis Press, 2020), The Critique of Religion and Religion’s Critique: On Dialectical Religiology (Brill, 2020), and Frantz Fanon and Emancipatory Social Theory: A View from the Wretched (Brill, 2020). Seyed Javad Miri, Ph.D., is a Swedish-Iranian sociologist, public intellectual and Professor of sociology at the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies in Tehran-Iran. He is known for his expertise on social theory and Islamic and critical thinkers. He is also the Co-Director of the Institute for Critical Social Theory. He has published over 100 books in English, Persian and Swedish. His recent publications include Ali Shariati: Critical Theory and the Struggle for Decolonization and Socio-Analysis: A Theory on Emancipation and Pain (in Persian).

• Notes on ContributorsIntroductionDustin J. Byrd and Seyed Javad MiriPart 1Reviving Freud1 Exhuming the Freudian Corpus: On Freud as a Social and Cultural TheoristHoward L. KayePart 2Freud and the Frankfurt School2 Freud’s Psychology of Religion: The Frankfurt School, Determinate Negation, and Return to ReligionDustin J. Byrd3 Adorno, Freud, and the Dialectic of the Individual and the SocialGregory Joseph Menillo4 Marx and Freud, Horkheimer and Adorno: Beyond the Historical Gender StruggleRudolf J. SiebertPart 3Freud and Religion5 Critical Social Theory and Religion: Revisiting Sigmund Freud’s Discourse on ReligionSeyed Javad Miri6 Black Power’s Deification of the Son: A Freudian Reading of the Reverse Oedipal Relationship between Malcolm x and Elijah MuhammadJimmy ButtsPart 4Freud and the Political7 Freud’s Mass Psychology Today: Psychoanalysis, Politics, and Populism in the Age of Post-truthYannis Stavrakakis8 Freud, Marx, and the Structure of FreedomMichael J. Thompson9 How to Conceive of the Unconscious and its Political SignificanceFabio MolinariPart 5Freud, Morality, and the Death Drive10 Beyond the Death-Drive: Psychoanalysis and Social CritiqueDelia Popa and Iaan Reynolds11 “I Know Very Well, but Nevertheless”: Moral Immaturity of the 21st Century Humanitarian WitnessMlado Ivanovic12 Freud and the Problem of Moral AgencyAlfred I. Tauber13 “No One Believes in His Own Death.” On More and Less Necessary IllusionsUlrike Kistner14 Killing in the Name of the Father: Freud and René Girard on the Question of DesireClint JonesPart 6Freud, Neo-freudians, and Beyond15 Psychoanalysis and the American IntellectualEli Zaretsky16 A Freudian Analysis of the Competing Groups on Uncorroborated Allegations of Child Sexual AbuseMichael Naughton