Racial Fever: Freud and the Jewish Question
"Timely and provocative, this book will interest anyone who wants to understand why we continue to think about the question of who's a Jew and what this has to do with Sigmund Freud."—Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer"Amazingly detailed and precise.Racial Feveroffers a vivid survey of the debate triggered by Freud's decision to call Moses an Egyptian. We needed a new approach to the controversy and Slavet's original intervention does this brilliantly, with unerring flair and insight."—Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania"Eliza Slavet offers a brilliant reading of Freud'sMoses and Monotheismas the prism with which to view modern Jewish ideas of race and inherited identity. By situating Freud's last book in this larger field, she sheds new light on how Jews have struggled to define a Jewishness that is beyond religion. Stylistically riveting,Racial Fevermakes a major contribution to modern Jewish history, cultural studies and European intellectual history."—David Biale, author ofBlood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians"Eliza Slavet has opened a most surprising and ground-breaking window on the much debated question of the unconscious in cultural memory. Perhaps it required not only a great scholar but also a young woman and an artist to write this lucid and passionate book for which we have been waiting since Yerushalmi's and Derrida's debate on Freud and Judaism in the early 90s."—Jan Assmann, author ofMoses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism"Racial Feveris part of a now venerable tradition of scholarship that engages with the history and accomplishments of the psychoanalytic movement. Slavet is fair in her assessments of rival scholars, pointed and eloquent in how her own interpretations differ from or overlap with those of others, and has followed up every available lead to document her arguments."—Robert Nye, Oregon State University"Slavet's sympathetic approach to Freud's exploration of the origins of race is audacious, and she asks questions that are still relevant despite, or because of, their very toxicity."-- Harper's Magazine (Oct. 2009)