Freud and the NonEuropean Author:Edward W. Said, Christopher Bollas, Jacqueline Rose Banned by the Freud Institute in Vienna, this controversial lecture became Edward Said's final book. Using an impressive array of material from literature, archaeology and social theory, Edward Said explores the profound implications of Freuds Moses and Monotheism for Middle-East politics today. The resulting book reveals Sa... more »ids abiding interest in Freuds work and its important influence on his own. He proposes that Freuds assumption that Moses was an Egyptian undermines any simple ascription of a pure identity, and further that identity itself cannot be thought or worked through without the recognition of the limits inherent in it. Said suggests that such an unresolved, nuanced sense of identity might, if embodied in political reality, have formed, or might still form, the basis for a new understanding between Jews and Palestinians. Instead, Israels relentless march towards an exclusively Jewish state denies any sense of a more complex, inclusive past. "Quite differently from the spirit of Freuds deliberately provocative reminders that Judaisms founder was a non-Jew, and that Judaism begins in the realm of Egyptian, non-Jewish monotheism, Israeli legislation countervenes, represses, and even cancels Freuds carefully maintained opening out of Jewish identity toward its non-Jewish background."« less