Femininity and eroticism in the works of Lou Andreas-Salomé

• Grant number: 13/24074-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): January 20, 2014
• Effective date (End): November 19, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Nina Virginia de Araujo Leite
• Grantee: Lara Medeiros Borges Pereira
• Supervisor: Thorsten Carstensen
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 12/17678-7 - THE DIALOGUE FREUD - LOU ANDREAS-SALOMÉ ABOUT FEMININITY AND EROTICISM, BP.DR

Abstract

Lou Andreas-Salomé is undoubtedly one of the most prominent female philosophical and literary figures of the 19th and 20th centuries, although few studies have been conducted about her life and work, especially regarding the fruits of her intellectual and personal encounter with Freud. A student of theology, philosophy, comparative religion and art history, she arrived in Vienna to study psychoanalysis on October 25, 1912, at age 51.She was already known due to the fictional heroines of her novels, most of them ahead of their time, as well as due to her study Ibsen's Heroines (1892) and the first monograph about Nietzsche. Similarly, her arrival was preceded by the fame of being friends with great European intellectual personalities of the time. Andreas-Salomé's publications on psychoanalytic theory in general are scarce and consist mostly of readings on psychoanalytic language of issues that had interested her previously, enhanced by the newly acquired knowledge. However, over the 25 years she studied and practiced psychoanalysis, she stands out as a major interlocutor of Freud and his metapsychology, as well as her own patients according to their correspondence. Her questions focus mainly on the themes of female sexuality, love, and the issues of narcissism and sexual difference. (AU)