Between memory and desire: from history to psychoanalysis and back.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, when the Freudian paradigm took itsfirst steps towards becoming a modern amalgam of science and hermeneutics,history was considered the most established and instrumental discipline inman's quest to endow his thinking and action with meaning. The kinshipbetween the disciplines, which could be traced back to the persona of Freud,took many shapes in the course of the twentieth century. Examined inperspective one could maintain that modern historiography andpsychoanalysis have travelled the same distance in moving away fromphilosophical idealism, have shared some of the illusions of militantpositivism and are accustomed to evoke the same criticism due to their claimto half-scientific, half-artistic epistemology. We start by considering theintellectual legacies and theoretical foundations that shaped the twodisciplines’ perspective of each other. We then proceed to juxtapose severalhistorical moments in the evolution of psychoanalysis and history. Turning ourattention to several key concepts and tropes, which form part of thecontemporary objectivity-subjectivity discourse, we try to sketch an outline[→]