Abstract
Psychoanalysis is a clear example of a transnational system of thought. Since its creation in late imperial Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century, and particularly after World War II, the center of production and consumption of psychoanalysis has shifted, from continental Europe to the Anglo-Saxon world; and then in the 1960s, to the Latin world (France, but particularly Latin America). In the early 1940s Ernest Jones, then the president of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), told members of the newly created Argentine Psychoanalytic Association that the German language was yielding its place to English as the official language of psychoanalysis. Today Spanish and French are probably the main languages in which psychoanalysis (particularly in its Lacanian version) is produced, discussed and practiced. This displacement from one continent to another and from one language to another had an impact not only on psychoanalysis as a body of thought and as a system of beliefs, but also on the different cultural spaces in which it took roots and developed.1
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Notes
In recent years there has been an impressive production of scholarship on the diffusion of psychoanalysis in different countries. What follows is only a small sample of it. For the diffusion of psychoanalysis in France, see Elisabeth Roudinesco, La bataille de cent ans: L’histoire de la psychanalyse en France, 2 vols. (Paris: Seuil, 1986)
and Sherry Turkle, Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud’s French Revolution (2nd ed., London: Free Association Books, 1992);
for Russia, Martin Miller, Freud and the Bolsheviks. Psychoanalysis in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998);
and Alexander Etkind, Eros of the Impossible. The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia (Boulder: Westview, 1997);
for the US, see Nathan G. Hale Jr, The Beginning of Psycho-analysis in the United States, 1876–1917 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971); and The Rise and Crisis of Psychoanalysis in the United States, 1917–1985 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995);
for Argentina, Mariano Plotkin, Freud in the Pampas. The Emergence and Development of a Psychoanalytic Culture in Argentina (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001).
For Australia, see Joy Damousi, Freud in the Antipode. A Cultural History of Psychoanalysis in Australia (Sydney: UNSW press, 2005).
Some authors make the distinction between “freudism” as the loose collection of discourses and practices inspired in Freud’s ideas and “psychoanalysis” as a more formalized therapeutic practice. I believe that this distinction in unnecessary. I prefer to use a broad definition of psychoanalysis. See Hugo Vezzetti, Aventuras de Freud en el país de los Argentinos (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1996).
See Mariano Plotkin, “Tell Me Your Dreams: Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture in Buenos Aires, 1930–1950,” The Americas, 55: 4 (1999) 601–629.
Elias derives his conception of “habitus” from psychoanalysis: “[Freud] attempted to show the connection between the outcome of the conflict-ridden channelling of drives in a person’s development and his or her resulting habitus.” Analogous connections could be established for societies. Although I am not sure about the fruitfulness of such analogies, I prefer the (historical ) concept of “national habitus” to the (a-historical and essentialist) idea of “national character.” See Norbert Elias, The Germans. Power Struggle and the Development of Habitus in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New York: Columbia U.P., 1996), p. 19 and passim.
Richard Morse, “The Multiverse of latin American Identity, c. 1920–c.1970,” In Bethell, Leslie (ed.), Ideas and Ideologies in Twentieth Century Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
For a historical analysis of Argentine elites’s dycothomical view of the reality, see Maristella Svampa, El dilema argentino: civilización o barbarie. De Sarmiento al revisionismo peronista (Buenos Aires: El cielo por asalto, 1994).
On the evolution of ideas about immigration, see Halperin Donghi, Tulio, “¿Para qué la inmigración? Ideología y política inmigratoria en la Argentina (1810–1914),” Halperin Donghi (ed.), El espejo de la historia: problemas argentinos y perspectivas hispanoamericanas (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1987).
Lilia Moritz Schwarcz notes that during the Brazilian monarchy a system of titles imported from Europe which included dukes, counts, viscounts, barons, and the like was mixed with indigenous names for those titles. Thus, there was a Viscount of Pirajá; a Viscountess of Tibají; a Baron of Bujurú., etc. See Moritz Schwarcz, Lilia, As barbas do Imperador. D. Pedro II, um monarca nos trópicos (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1998).
Until the abolition of the slave trade Brazil received more black slaves than any other country in the Americas. On the paradoxical place of liberalism in nineteenth century Brazilian elites’ thought, see Roberto Schwarz, “Las ideas fuera de lugar,” In Adriana Amante and Florencia Garramuño, (eds.), Absurdo Brasil. Polémicas en la cultura brasileña (Buenos Aires: Biblos, 2000).
Nineteenth century romantic writers exhalted and idealized the “indian” as a national symbol. Moreover, other writers and critics such as Silvio Romero or Araripe Junior found in “mestizaje” (miscegenation) the origins of Brazilian literature. Later, at the turn of the century, in his enormously popular work Os Sertões (1902), Euclydes da Cunha found the bedrock of Brazilian nationality in the mestizo population from the sertão. However, the hegemonic point of view among Brazilian intellectuals held that the whitening of the population was at the same time a precondition and a consequence of modernization. For a discussion on race in literature, see, Roberto Ventura, Estilo tropical. História cultural e polêmicas literárias no Brasil (São Paulo: Companhia das letras, 1991).
See Thomas Skidmore, Black into White. Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (2nd ed., Durham: Duke University Press, 1993).
See Emilia Viotti da Cosa, “The Myth of Brazilian Racial Democracy,” in Viotti da Costa (ed.), The Brazilian Empire, Myths and History (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1985).
On the impact of positivism in Latin America, see Hale, Charles, “Political and Social Ideas,” In Bethell, Leslie (ed.), Latin America: Economy and Society, 1870–1930 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989). In Brazil, Comtean positivism became, during the early years of the republic, almost a civic religion.
Nathan G. Hale, Freud and the Americans. The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis in the United States, 1876–1917 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995 [1st ed 1971]), Chapters III and IV.
Skidmore, Black; Daim Borges, “Puffy, Ugly, Slothful and Inert: Degeneration in Brazilian Social Thought,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 25: 2 (May 1993) 235–256;
See Kristin Ruggiero, Modernity in the Flesh. Medicine, law and Society in Turn-of-the-Century Argentina (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).
The image of the (particularly) Italian immigrant as the seed of degeneracy was present in naturalist fiction. See Gabriela Nouzeilles, Ficciones somáticas. Naturalismo, nacionalismo y políticas médicas del cuerpo (Argentina 1880–1910) (Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo, 2000).
Moreira-Almeida, Alexander, Silva de Almeida, Angélica and Lotufo Neto, Francisco, “History of ‘Spiritist Madness’ in Brazil,” History of Psychiatry, 16: 1 (2005) 5–25.
Germán Greve, “Sobre psicología y psicoterapia de ciertos estados angustiosos,” reproduced In Vezzetti, Hugo (ed.), Freud en Buenos Aires, 1910–1939 (Buenos Aires: Puntosur, 1989), p. 90.
See Hugo Vezzetti, Aventuras de Freud en el país de los argentinos. de José Ingenieros a Enrique Pichon Rivière (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1996), pp. 15–18.
Raitzin, Alejandro, “La locura y los sueños,” Revista de Criminología, Psiquiatría y Medicina Legal, 6 (1919), 25–54.
Francisco Franco da Rocha, O pansexualismo na doutrina de Freud (São Paulo, Typographia Brasil de Rotschild, 1920).
See Montechi Valladares de Oliveira, Carmen Lucia., “L’implantation du mouvement psychanalytique à São Paulo” (PhD. Diss, Université Paris 7, 2001), p. 93.
Jane Russo, “A Psicanálise no Brasil-Institucionalizacão e Difusão entre o Público Leigo” Paper delivered at the 2006 meeting of the Latin American Studies Association in Puerto Rico (March 15–18, 2006).
See also Ana Teresa Venancio and Lázara Carvalhal, “Juliano Moreira: a psiquiatria científica no processo civilizador brasileiro,” In, Dias Duarte, Luiz Fernando; Russo, Jane and Venancio, Ana Teresa (eds.), Psicologizacão no Brasil. Atores e autores (Rio de Janeiro: Contra Capa Livraria, 2005).
However, social thinkers did approach psychoanalysis during the 1960s. See Jorge Balan, Cuéntame tu vida. Una biografíia colectiva del psicoanálisis en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1991).
For Peronism and culture, see Mariano Plotkin, Manana es San Peron. A Cultural History of Peron’s Argentina (Wielmington: Scholarly Resources, 2003). Later, in the 1970s and 1980s the diffusion of the doctrines of Jacques Lacan opened a new space for the interaction between analysits and intellectuals. See also Plotkin, Freud in the Pampas.
Russo, Jane, “A difusão da psicanálise no Brasil na primeira metade do século XX-Da vanguarda modernista à radio-novela” Estudos e Pesquisas em Psicologia, 2: 1 (2002), 53–64.
Buarque de Holanda, Sergio, Raizes do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympo, 1936).
Freyre, Gilberto, Casa grande & senzala. Formação da família brasileira sob o regime de economia patriarcal (Rio de Janeiro: Maia & Schmidt, 1993).
Jane Russo, “A Difusão da Psicanálise no Brasil na Primeira Metade do Século XX-Da Vanguarda Modernista à Radio-Novela,” Estudos e Pesquisas em Psicologia, 2: 1 (2002), 53–64.
Ramos, Artur, O negro brasileiro (Recife: Massangana, 1988 [1st ed. 1934]), cit by Alexandre Schreiner, “Uma aventura para amanhã. Artur Ramos e a neurohigiene infantil na década de 1930,” In Dias Duarte, Russo and Venancio (orgs.), Psicologizacão, p. 157.
Porto-Carrero considered that abortion should be permitted (after a technical commission reviewed each cases) for six reasons: (a) therapeutic; (b) prophilactic; (c) eugenic; (d) moral; (e) aesthetic (in the case of women for whom, like dancers such as Isadora Duncan, the aesthetic of their body constitute the basis of their contribution to society); and (f) professional (women who make a crucial contribution to society and whose pregnancy and motherhood would impair them to fulfill their professional role, such as scientists). He also promoted birth control. See, Porto-Carrero, Júlio Pires, Psicanalise de uma civilizacão (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Guanabara, 1935), p. 164 and ff. See also Russo, Jane, “Júlio Porto-Carrero: a psicanálise como instrumento civilizador,” In Dias Duarte, Russo and Venancio (orgs.), Psicologizacao.
Elisabete Mokrejs, A Psicanálise no Brasil. As Origens do Pensamento Psicanalítico (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1993), ch. 4.
Porto-Carrero, Júlio P., “Coneito Psychanalytico da pena,” In Porto-Carrero (ed.), Ensaios de Psychanalyse (Rio de Janeiro: Flores y Mano, 1929), p. 185.
Porto-Carrero, Júlio, Criminologia e psicanálise (Rio de Janeiro: Flores & Mano, 1932), p. 63, cited in Russo, “Júlio Porto-Carrero,” p. 135.
For a comparison between Perón’s and Vargas’s relationship with intellectuals, see Fiorucci, Flavia, “¿Aliados o enemigos? Los intelectuales en los gobiernos de Vargas y Perón” en Rein, Raanan y Rosalie Sitman (comps.), El primer peronismo. De regreso a los comienzos (Buenos Aires: Lumiere, 2005).
On Brazilian intellectuals, see Miceli, Sergio, Intelectuais e classe dirigente no Brasil (1920–1945) (São Paulo: DIFEL, 1979);
and Pécaut, Daniel, Entre le peuple et la nation: Les intellectuels et la politique au Brésil (Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1989).
However, it should be noted that Modernism was far from a unified movement and developed strong regional and ideological overtones. For an overview, see Cándido, Antonio and Castello, José Aderaldo, Presenca da literatura brasileira. Modernismo/História e antologia (Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 2001).
Florencia Garramuño, Modernidades primitivas. Tango, samba y nación (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007).
Cristiana Facchinetti, “Deglutindo Freud: Histórias da digestão do discurso psicanalítico no Brasil” (Ph.D diss. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2001).
See Marialzira Perestrello, “Primeiros econtros com a psicanálise. Os precursores no Brasil (1899–1937),” In Figueira, Sérvulo (ed.), Efeito Psi (Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 1988); and Sagawa, Roberto Yutaka, “A psicanálise.” Marcondes himself had published literary texts in the modernista magazine Klaxon.
For a perceptive analysis of Martin Fierro, see Sarlo, Beatriz, Una modernidad periférica: Buenos Aires 1920 y 1930 (Buenos Aires: Nueva Visibn, 1988), ch. 4,
and Sarlo, Beatriz and Carlos Altamirano, “Vanguardia y criollismo: la aventura de Martin Fierro” in Sarlo and Altamirano, Ensayos argentinos. De Sarmiento a la vanguardia (Buenos Aires: 1997), pp. 211–260.
See Jorge Schwatz, Vanguarda e cosmopolitismo na década de 20. Oliverio Girondo e Oswald de Andrade (São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 1983), pp. 132–133, 143. Girondo was a conspicuous member of the Martin Fierro group: he wrote the
Text by Roberto Mariani included in Vignale, Pedro Juan and Tiempo, César, Exposiciôn de la actual poesia argentina (Buenos Aires: Minerva, 1927), cit. by Prieto, Adolfo, “Roberto Arlt: Los siete locos. Los lanzallamas,” In Arlt, Roberto, Los siete locos. Los lanzallamas (Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1978), p. XVI.
See, Beatriz Sarlo, La imaginación técnica. Suenos modernos de la cultura argentina (Buenos Aires: Nueva Visiön, 1992).
Florestan Fernandes, “Desenvolvimento histórico-social da sociologia no Brasil” in Fernandes, A sociologia no Brasil. Contribução para o estudo de sua formação e desenvolvimento (Petrôpolis: Voces, 1977), p. 35 and ff.
Roger Bastide, “Matériaux pour une sociologie du rêve” in Revue Internationale de Sociologie 41: 11–12 (1933). An excellent analysis of Bastide’s intellectual trajectory can be found in Peixoto,
Fernanda Arêas, Diálogos Brasileiros. Uma análise da obra de Roger Bastide (São Paulo: Edusp, 2000).
Originally published in 1941, in a book that bears the same title, it was reproduced in Bastide, Sociologia do folclore brasileiro (Sao Paulo: Anhambi, 1959).
Roger Bastide, Sociologie et psychanalyse (Paris: PUF, 1950). Bastide mentions in the prologue that the book originated in the interest that his Brazilian students had shown for psychoanalysis back in the 1930s.
Dias Duarte, “Em busca do castelo interior. Roger Bastide e a psicologizaçáo do Brasil,” In Dias Duarte, Russo and Venancio (eds.), Psicologização (Rio de Janeiro: Contra Capa Livraria, 2005), pp. 167–182.
See Neiburg, Federico, Los intelectuales y la invención del peronismo. Estudios de antropologia social y cultural (Buenos Aires: Alianza, 1998).
Gino Germani, “Prefacio a la edición castellana,” Erich Fromm, El miedo a la libertad (Buenos Aires: Paidös, 1947), pp. 9–11,
cit by Alejandro Blanco, Razón y modernidad. Gino Germani y la sociologla Argentina (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2006), p. 127. My discussion on Germani is mostly based on this work and on other papers by Blanco:
Alejandro Blanco, “Gino Germani: las ciencias del hombre y el proyecto de una voluntad politica ilustrada,” Punto de Vista 62 (Dic. 1998) 25–38;
Hugo Vezzetti, “Las ciencias sociales y el campo de la salud mental en la década del sesenta,” Punto de Vista, 54 (April 1995) 29–33.
On Germani, see Alejandro Blanco, “La sociologia: Una profesión en disputa,” In Federico Neiburg and Mariano Plotkin (eds), Intelectuales y expertos. La constitución del conocimiento social en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 2004);
Ana Alejandra Germani, Gino Germani, del anti fascismo a la sociologia (Buenos Aires: Taurus, 2004).
See Gino Germani, “Psicoanálisis y sociologia: un problema de método” originally published as an introduction to the Spanish translation of Psicologia y sociologia by Walter Hollitscher (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1951),
reproduced in Alejandro Blanco (ed.), Gino Germani: La renovación intelectual de la sociologia (Bernal: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 2007), p. 124.
See, for instance, Gino Germani, “El psicoanálisis y las ciencias del hombre” in Revista de la Universidad, La Plata, 3 (1956); and Germani, “Sociologia, relaciones humanas y psiquiatria,” Revista de la Universidad de Buenos Aires 1: 1 (1956) 139–144; Germani, “Psicoanálisis.”
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Plotkin, M.B. (2009). Psychoanalysis, Transnationalism and National Habitus: A Comparative Approach to the Reception of Psychoanalysis in Argentina and Brazil (1910s–1940s). In: Damousi, J., Plotkin, M.B. (eds) The Transnational Unconscious. The Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230582705_7
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