Freud and the Topos of the Wandering Jew

Shuli Barzilai*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

The question that initiated this investigation concerns Sigmund Freud’s inability to bring him-self to leave Vienna during the years before and, then, the days after the Nazi annexation and invasion of Austria in March 1938. Why did Freud delay the decision to escape until it was almost too late? To try and understand such near-fatal immovability, my essay explores two models of mobility: the first is the convoluted folktale, legend, or chronicle of the Wandering Jew; the second is what I call ‘Freud’s train connections’, that is, his theoretical thinking about and personal experience of trains and railroad journeys. However, since Freud’s encounters with the Wandering Jew and his train connections intersect at several junctures, my discussion does not (and indeed cannot) keep them strictly or neatly apart.1.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)121-143
Number of pages23
JournalWord and Text
Volume13
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, Universitatea Petrol-Gaze din Ploiesti. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • displacement
  • folklore
  • Freud
  • Goethe
  • Nazi invasion of Austria
  • trains
  • Wandering Jew

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