Image, Word and Self

In recent years, much of the most creative work in the interpretation of Freud, as well as in the appropriation of psychoanalysis by the humanities and social sciences, has taken place in Latin cultures, particularly in Italy and France. Today we can point to a «Latinization» of Freud that has taken place over the past several decades. Compared to their Latin colleagues, American analysts have shown relatively little interest in the extra-clinical application of psychoanalysis to philosophy, aesthetics, linguistics, literary criticism, historiography, anthropology, and humanistic writings in general. In Image, Word and Self, fifteen distinguished scholars from Italy, France and the United States explore the significance and the implications of these different receptions of Freud - focusing on the function of the imagination, rationality and the subject.