The Freudian Slip Psychoanalysis and Textual Criticism

In an iconoclastic work of great verve-with an introductory essay by Perry Anderson-Sebastiano Timpanaro submits the whole field of psychoanalysis to one of its most sustained and serious Marxist critiques. Using textual criticism, Timpanaro reconsiders the most famous cases of the 'slips' analyzed by Freud in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, and argues that in virtually every case Freud's explanations of them are arbitrary or unnecessary. His book ends with a remarkable interpretation of the cultural and historical destiny of Freud's work within early twentieth-century thought.This edition of Timpanaro's compelling study also includes his essay 'Freud's Roman Phobia', originally published in New Left Review.

Sebastiano Timpanaro was born in Parma in 1923 and died in 2000. He studied classical philology at the University of Florence. His works include On Materialism and Freudian Slip, as well as major studies of Leopardi and Edmondo De Amicis.

Perry Anderson is the author of, among other books, Spectrum, Lineages of the Absolutist State, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, Considerations on Western Marxism, English Questions, The Origins of Postmodernity, and The New Old World. He teaches history at UCLA and is on the editorial board of New Left Review.