Reading Freud: Psychoanalysis as Cultural Theory

Cultural theory has found a renewed interest in psychoanalysis, bringing many new readers to Freud and his work. This book is an introductory guide to that Freud and brings together for the first time: - an overview of Freud's work which enables the reader to see quickly where, and in which texts, Freud develops his main ideas; - a guide to reading Freud, and to what can be done with the complexities of his texts; - an examination of what recent cultural theory draws from Freud, and of why psychoanalysis is of interest for it; - a reading and argument about the Freud revealed by recent cultural theory; - an extensive selection of extracts from Freud's texts, with commentary. This book is now the definitive guide to the content of Freud's texts: what's there and where to find it. It will have wide appeal to students new to Freud in cultural studies, literary theory, philosophy and sociology.