Abstract
In some recent work on decolonization, there has been an attempt to claim some Jewish writers of the twentieth century as participating in a rethinking of “barbarism” that aligns Jewish thought with the decolonial movement. This is problematic, especially because post-Shoah and Zionist discourses have positioned Jews normatively as part of European “civilization” opposed to barbarism. Nevertheless, the reclaiming of a radical Jewish tradition allied with other movements of the oppressed may provide resources for “barbaric thinking,” using “barbaric” here in the positive sense to mean that which confronts the hegemony of European colonial thought. The relative absence of psychoanalysis from this discussion is striking. Given the place of psychoanalysis both as a “colonial” discipline and as a contributor to critical and postcolonial thought, can it be seen in the positive tradition of Jewish barbarism? This article offers an account of Jewish barbaric possibilities and suggests ways in which psychoanalysis might connect with them.
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Frosh, S. Psychoanalysis as decolonial Judaism. Psychoanal Cult Soc 25, 174–193 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-020-00163-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-020-00163-8