Freud and the Institution of Psychoanalytic Knowledge

How did psychoanalytic knowledge attain a dual status both as common sense about the inner life among the educated and as seemingly indispensable psychological expertise during the first half of the twentieth century? Combining approaches from literary studies and historical sociology, this book provides a groundbreaking cultural history of the strategies Freud employed in his writings and career to orchestrate public recognition of psychoanalyis and to shape its institutional identity. The author argues that a central element of Freud s institutionalization project was his theoretical appropriation of Greek tragedy. He derived cultural authority and legitimacy for psychoanalysis by adopting the generic conventions and universal relevance of Sophoclean tragedy, as well as the prestige of classical education, in his elaboration of the Oedipus complex. As the author shows, Lacanian psychoanalysis has followed Freud s lead in purveying an ahistorical reading of Sophocles Oedipus plays to authorize its reimagining of the Oedipal subject.