A conceptual complement to the Freudian uncanny

• Grant number: 19/12033-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2019
• End date: September 11, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Daniel Omar Perez
• Grantee: Samia Souen Tortorella
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The goal of this research is to complement the definition of the uncanny [das Unheimliche], in the way that it is introduced by Freud in 1919, in the text which is named after this concept (The Uncanny, or Das Unheimliche, the original German title). I support that, based on the criticism which Freud addresses to Ernst Jentsch's work on the uncanny, it is actually possible to address to Freud's own conclusion about the feeling of uncanniness very similar criticism - which is substantiated fundamentally by the ideas of irreversibility and incompleteness. Having understood that something has to be added to the Freudian commentary about the uncanny (just like Freud pointed out on the case of Jentsch's commentary), I will suggest that such addition shall be made on the basis of a further development in Freud's theory, outlined in The Man Moses and the monotheistic religion (Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion, 1939 [1934-38]).