Jessica Resvick, Oklahoma State University

Freud’s Media: Transference, Metaphor, and Print Culture

Jessica Resvick, Oklahoma State University

In a 1912 technical paper, Sigmund Freud turns to a print metaphor to explicate the clinical phenomenon of transference. The patient’s relationship to the analyst, he writes, is like a reprint made from a stereotype plate. Though the reference is scarcely legible to the contemporary reader, stereotype printing was a well-known innovation of the nineteenth-century print industry that enabled the mass reproduction of texts and images. Tracing Freud’s metaphor back to nineteenth-century print and scientific culture, this paper shows how mass media provided the conceptual scaffolding for early psychoanalysis, in which the distinctions between transference, metaphor, and translation [Übertragung] readily collapse.

Registration

This event is free, but all participants must register in advance. Space is limited, so please do not request a paper unless you plan to attend.

About the German Studies Seminar

The Newberry Library German Studies Seminar series provides a forum for scholarship-in-progress in the area of German studies. The seminar is particularly interested in papers that cross disciplinary boundaries and that reconceptualize the materials and conventions of German Studies as a field, including beyond the frames of the German language and nation state. Like all Newberry Scholarly Seminars, meetings are conversational and free and open to faculty, graduate students, and members of the public, who register in advance to request papers.

National Library Week

This seminar coincides with National Library Week (April 23-29), a week-long event organized by the American Library Association to celebrate the work of libraries across the United States.

To celebrate, we're offering 10% off all purchases at the Newberry Bookshop (both in-store and online) for the entire week! To access the discount online, enter the code Tome 10 at checkout.

As we celebrate how libraries support communities nationwide, it is also important to remember that we need your support in return. Make a gift this National Library Week to help keep the Newberry vibrant for years to come.

Questions?