The compromised self: the dissection of subjectivity in Hermann Broch’s Psychological autobiography
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/asclepio.2013.16Keywords:
Self, Subjectivity, Psychological subject, Hermann Broch, Auto-analysisAbstract
Hermann Broch was convinced of the veracity of psychoanalysis and was under psychoanalytical treatment several times in his life with well-known analysts: Hedwig Hoffer-Schaxel, from 1928 to 1935, Gustav Bychowski between 1939 y 1940, and Paul Federn, from 1943 to at least 1946. Broch also wrote in 1942/1943, while finishing The Death of Virgil, his Psychological Autobiography and its Appendix. Both writings, never intended to be published by his author, were thought as a kind of auto-analysis aimed to clarify, within a Freudian conceptual framework, two problems: the tension between sexuality and production, and the repercussion of the mother’s figure. But the approach to these questions resulted in the transversal and progressive emergence of a reflection upon the self and the way of preparing it to action, of increasing its involvement, in sum, of recreating it aesthetically and ethically. This paper puts in context and studies this compromised self, that subtle blend of psychological analysis, aesthetical theory and moral philosophy that shaped Broch’s subjectivity.
Downloads
References
Arendt, Hannah (2001), Hombres en tiempos de oscuridad, Barcelona, Gedisa.
Berman, Marshall (1988), All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience Of Modernity, New York, Penguin.
Brinthaupt, Thomas M. y Lipka, P. (eds.) (1992), The Self: Definitional and Methodological Issues, Albany, State University of New York Press.
Broch, Hermann (1974), Poesía e Investigación [Dichten und Erkennen, 1955], Barcelona, Barral.
Broch, Hermann (1999), Psychische Selbstbiographie, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp.
Calinescu, Matei (1999), Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism, Durham, Duke University Press.
Contrada, Richard J. y Ashmore, Richard D. (eds.) (1999), Self, Social Identity, and Physical Health, New York, Oxford University Press.
Chadwick, Owen (1975), The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Ellenberger, Henry F. (1976), El descubrimiento del inconsciente: Historia y evolución de la psiquiatría dinámica [The Discovery of the Unconscious. The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry], Madrid, Gredos.
Elliott, Anthony (2008), Concepts of the Self, Cambridge, Polity Press.
Ffytche, Matt (2012), The Foundation of the Unconscious: Schelling, Freud and the Birth of the Modern Psyche, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Foucault, Michel (1966), Les mots et les choses. Une archéologie des sciences humaines, Paris, Gallimard.
Foucault, Michel (1988), “Technologies of the Self”. En: Martin, Luther H., Gutman, Huc y Hutton, Patrick H. (eds.), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, Londres, Tavistock, pp. 16-49.
Frosch, Stephen (2003), Key Concepts in Psychoanalysis, New York, New York University Press.
Giddens, Antohny (1991), Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Stanford, Stanford University Press.
González de Pablo, Ángel (1994), “The medicine of the soul. The origin and development of thought on the soul, diseases of the soul, and their treatment, in Mediaeval and Renaissance medicine”, History of Psychiatry, 5, pp. 483-516. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957154X9400502003
Gusdorf, Georges (1993), Le romantisme. 2 vols., Paris, Payot & Rivages.
Hacking, Ian (1995), Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the sciences of Memory, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
“Hedwig Hoffer-Schaxel” (2012). En: Psychoanalytikerinnen. Biographisches Lexikon, disponible en: http://www.psychoanalytikerinnen. de [consultado el 12/08/2012].
“Hermann Broch” (2012). En: Wikipedia, disponible en: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Broch [consultado el 17/07/2102].
Jaffé, Aniela (1955), Hermann Broch: Der Tod des Virgil: Ein Beitrag zum Problem der Individuation, Zu.rich, Rascher.
Jameson, Frederic (1991), Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham, Duke University Press.
Korfmacher, Karsten (2006), “Personal Identity”. En: Internet Encyclopedia of Phisolophy, disponible en: http://www.iep.utm.edu/person-i [consultado el 23/07/2012].
Laplanche, Jean y Pontalis, Jean-Bernard (1996), Diccionario de psicoanálisis [Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse, 1967], Barcelona, Paidós.
Lützeler, Paul M. (1989), Hermann Broch: una biografía [Hermann Broch. Eine biographie, 1985], Valencia, Edicions Alfons el Magnànim.
Lützeler, Paul M. (1999), “Donquijuanjote: Hermann Broch über sich selbst”. En: Broch, Hermann, Psychische Selbstbiographie, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, pp. 145-169.
Lützeler, Paul M. (2000), Die Entropie des Menschen. Studien zum Werk Hermann Brochs, Wu.rzburg, Königshausen & Neumann.
Lützeler, Paul M. (ed.) (2004), Freundschaft im Exil: Thomas Mann und Hermann Broch, Frankfurt, Vittorio Klostermann.
Lützeler , Paul M. (2005), Hermann Broch – Ruth Norden: Transatlantische Korrespondenz, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp.
Lützeler, Paul M. (ed.) (2007), Hermann Broch: “Frauengeschichten”. Die Briefe an Paul Federn 1939-1949, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp.
Lützeler, Paul M. (2011), Hermann Broch und die Moderne: Roman, Menschenrecht, Biographie, Mu.nchen, Wilhelm Fink.
Lyon, David (2000), Posmodernidad [Postmodernity, 1999], Madrid, Alianza.
Lyotard, Jean-François (1987), La condición postmoderna: informe sobre el saber [La condition postmoderne: Rapport sur le savoir, 1979], Madrid, Cátedra.
Makari, George (2008), Revolution in Mind: the Creation of Psychoanalysis, New York, HarperCollins.
Mauron, Alex (2001), “Is the Genome the Secular Equivalent of the Soul?”, Science, 291, pp. 831-832. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1058768
Montiel, Luis (2008), Magnetizadores y sonámbulas en el Romanticismo alemán, Madrid, Frenia.
Noonan, Harold W. (2003), Personal Identity. London, Routledge.
Novas, Carlos y Rose, Nikolas (2000), “Genetic Risk and the Birth of the Somatic Individual”, Economy and Society, 29, pp. 485-513. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03085140050174750
Ortega, Francisco (2009), “The Cerebral Subject and the Challenge of Neurodiversity”, BioSocieties, 2009 (4), pp. 425-445. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1745855209990287
Owen, Alex (2001), “Occultism and the ‘Modern’ Self in Fin-de-Siècle Britain”. En: Daunton, Martin y Rieger, Bernhard (eds.), Meanings of Modernity. Britain from the Late-Victorian Era to World War II, Oxford y New York, Berg, pp. 71-96.
Owen, Alex (2007), The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern, London, The University of Chicago Press.
Peters, Uwe Henrik (1984), Wörterbuch der Psychiatrie und medizinischen Psychologie, München, Urban & Schwarzenberg.
Porter, Roy (ed.) (1997), Rewriting the Self: Histories from the Renaissance to the Present, London, Routledge.
Ritzer, Monika (1988), Hermann Broch und die Kulturkrise im frühen 20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart, Metzler.
Rose, Nikolas (1989), Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self. London, Routledge.
Rose, Nikolas (2007), The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.
Safranski, Rüdiger (2010), Romantik: eine deutsche Affäre, Frankfurt, Fischer.
Schwartz, Joseph (2003), Cassandra’s Daughter: A History of Psychoanalysis, London, H. Karnak.
Stein, Murray (2007), El proceso de individuación, Barcelona, Luciérnaga.
Tauber, Alfred (2012), “The Biological Notion of Self and Non-self”. En: Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2012 Edition), disponible en: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/biology-self, [consultado el 01/08/2012].
Taylor, Charles (1989), Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
Thompson, Mathew (2001), “Psychology and the ‘Consciousness of Modernity’ in Early Twentieth-Century Britain”. En: Daunton, Martin y Rieger, Bernhard (eds.), Meanings of Modernity. Britain from the Late-Victorian Era to World War II, Oxford y New York, Berg, pp. 97-117.
Tougaw, Jason (2012), “Brain Memories; Neuroscience, and the Self: A Review Article”, Literature and Medicine, 30 (1), pp. 171-192. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lm.2012.0007
Vidal, Fernando (2005), “Le Sujet cérébral: une esquisse historique et conceptuelle”, Psychiatrie, sciences humaines, neurosciences, 3 (11), pp. 37-48.
Vidal, Fernando (2009), “Brainhood, antropological figure of modernity”, History of Human Sciences, 22 (1), pp. 5-36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0952695108099133
Wangh, Martin (1972), “Gustav Bychowski, M.D – 1895-1972”, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 41, pp. 610-611.
Weiss, Edoardo (1978), “Einleitung”. En: Federn, Paul, Ich-psychologie und die Psychosen, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, pp. 9-27.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2013 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
© CSIC. Manuscripts published in both the print and online versions of this journal are the property of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, and quoting this source is a requirement for any partial or full reproduction.
All contents of this electronic edition, except where otherwise noted, are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. You may read here the basic information and the legal text of the licence. The indication of the CC BY 4.0 licence must be expressly stated in this way when necessary.
Self-archiving in repositories, personal webpages or similar, of any version other than the final version of the work produced by the publisher, is not allowed.
