Between Oedipus and the Sphinx: Freud and Egypt
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Between Oedipus and the Sphinx: Freud and Egypt

  • 27 Aug
    2019

    Criticism and Theory

    Miriam Leonard

Between Oedipus and the Sphinx: Freud and Egypt

Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres’ painting of Oedipus’ encounter with the Sphinx famously hung over Sigmund Freud’s couch in his consulting room. Nobody doubts the significance of Oedipus to the development of Freud’s thought, but the presence of the Sphinx in this picture raises a series of questions about Freud’s interests which have not been as extensively explored. The Sphinx testifies to Freud’s broader fascination with Egyptian culture – a fascination which manifests itself both in his writings and his collection of antiquities.

Duration -

August 27, 2019

Timing: 6:30 pm

Registrations Closed

Miriam Leonard

Miriam Leonard

Miriam Leonard is Professor of Greek Literature and its Reception at University College London. Her research explores the intellectual history of Greco-Roman classics in modern European thought from the eighteenth century to the present. She is author of Athens in Paris: Ancient Greece and the Political in Post-War French Thought (OUP, 2005), How to Read Ancient Philosophy (Granta, 2008), Socrates and the Jews: Hellenism and Hebraism from Moses Mendelssohn to Sigmund Freud (University of Chicago Press, 2012) and Tragic Modernities (Harvard University Press, 2015). She was the curator of the 2019 exhibition ‘Freud and Egypt’ at the Freud Museum, London where she is currently co-curating ‘Freud’s Antiquity: Object, Idea, Desire’