All registrants will receive their link to join via ZOOM. Attendees will also receive access to the recording on the Monday after the event, available to watch back for 1 month.
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In his later years, Sigmund Freud often indulged in that peculiarly modernist pastime, the reading of detective novels. But his passion for Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers was more than just a personal pleasure: psychoanalysis and the detective novel spring from common roots, so much so that Freud once remarked that his case histories read more like detective novels than medical reports.
Key periods of Freud’s life and work were mirrored by landmarks in the history of detective fiction. As Freud and Breuer were declaring that ‘hysterics fall ill mainly through reminiscences’ in 1893, Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty were plunging to their (assumed) mutual destruction at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. The ‘Golden Age’ of detective fiction, which ran between 1920 and 1939, coincides with the final period of Freud’s career, from the publication of Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) to his final completed major work Moses and Monotheism (1939). Indeed, Freud’s birth year of 1856 sits comfortably between the two acknowledged originating moments of detective fiction, the publication of Poe’s ‘The Murders of the Rue Morgue’ (1841) and Collins’ The Moonstone (1868).
Discussing such themes as plotting, catharsis, ‘revelation’ and deferred action, this talk will explore some of the affinities between the psychoanalysts’ search for the origin of the symptom, and the detective’s quest to piece together the clues left by the culprit.
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Speaker:
Tom DeRose is Research Manager at the Freud Museum London. His research focusses on the cultural and philosophical aspects of Freudian theory. His most recent publication is ‘Freud’s Changing Views on Sadomasochism’, published in, ed. Akhtar and Crilley, ‘The Joy of Torment’ (Karnac, 2024). His is currently writing chapters on Freud’s theory of Anxiety and Psychoanalysis and the detective novel.
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Tickets: £15
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A limited number of £10 bursary tickets are available for those under financial hardship. Priority will be given to UK unemployed and PIP/ESA claimants. Please email perry@freud.org.uk to apply for a bursary.
The purpose of this event is to raise funds for the Freud Museum London, which receives no regular Government income. We are grateful to you for supporting our independent museum as generously as possible.
