American Academy of Religion The Godfather of Psychoanalysis: Circumcision, Antisemitism, Homosexuality, and Freud's "Fighting Jew" Author(s): Jay Geller Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 67, No. 2 (Jun., 1999), pp. 355-385 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1465741 . Accessed: 26/12/2012 17:47 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Oxford University Press and American Academy of Religion are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the American Academy of Religion. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Wed, 26 Dec 2012 17:47:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Journal of the AmericanAcademy of Religion67/2 The Godfather of Psychoanalysis: Circumcision,Antisemitism, Homosexuality,and Freud's "Fighting Jew" JayGeller STUDIES OF SIGMUND FREUD'SJewish identity trace a trajectory from the "ten-or-twelve-year-old"son's shame overhis father'ssubmissive response to an antisemitic assault that Freud recalls in his first major work, TheInterpretation of Dreams(1900:197), to the opening filial gam- bit of his last completedwork, the only one devotedto an extensiveanaly- sis of Judaismand antisemitism, Mosesand Monotheism.'Often attemp- ting to psychoanalyzethe father of psychoanalysis,these works render that identityas symptomaticof a son dutifullyacting out his own ambiva- lent Oedipal scenario whether with Jacob Freud, Judaism,or European modernity (cf., inter alia, Cuddihy;Robert; Rice; Geller 1997). Unlike that vast literature,this articleexamines the impact of Freud's Jewishnessfrom his position as a fatherand not as a son. The focus of this analysisis one of Freud'sclassic case histories, "Analysisof a Phobia in a Five-Year-OldBoy," popularly known as the Case of Little Hans. This case, with one notable exception-a footnote in which Freudspeculates JayGeller is Lecturerin ReligiousStudies at VanderbiltUniversity, Nashville, TN 37235. 1"To deny a peoplethe man whom it praisesas thegreatest of its sonsis nota deedto be under- takenlightheartedly-especially by onebelonging to thatpeople" (1939:7). 355 This content downloaded on Wed, 26 Dec 2012 17:47:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 356 Journal of the AmericanAcademy of Religion on the origin of antisemitismin the castrationfears aroused by circumci- sion-makes no explicit referenceto either Judaismor to the Jewishness of all of the individuals involved. Yet, that exception is the synecdochal rule of the text; throughout "Analysis"Freud is working through the problematicsof his Jewish identity. After examining the subtexts to the footnote-in particularthe situation that led Freud to assume the pa- ternal position in relationship to Little Hans-the article then analyzes how these contexts generatedan ethical dilemma that not only may have led Freudto (mis)read the case but also shaped the later developmentof psychoanalysis.It shows how antisemitism as a living reality for Freud, on the one hand, and circumcisionas a generalsign and a particularprac- tice performedon a colleague'slittle boy, on the other, combine with an assimilation-dictatedhomophobia to constructpsychoanalysis's model of individualdevelopment and the ideal of the fightingJew. A SINGULAR FOOTNOTE Sigmund Freud inaugurated the first psychoanalytic journal, the Jahrbuchfar psychoanalytischeund psychopathologische Forschungen, with a case study that he believed would provide the first compelling case for infantile sexuality as not just "the motive force of all the neurotic symp- toms of later life" but as the "common property of all men" (1909a:6).2 In his "Analysisof a Phobia in a Five-Year-OldBoy" Freuddescribes the onset, course, and apparent resolution of a young boy's pathological fearthat a "ahorse will bite him in thestreet" (22; emphasisin original);to explicate Little Hans'sphobia Freudpresents his first full elaborationof the castration complex and the consequences upon individual develop- ment of this phantasythat attributesthe anatomicaldifference between the sexes to the penises of some childrenbeing cut off. The centerpieceof Freud'spaper is the accountof LittleHans's phobia and its treatmentby his father, a member of Freud'scircle; this section consists of the father's weeklyreports of observationsof and conversationswith his son together with Freud'sglosses. Earlyin the case history Freudidentifies the deferredthreat of castra- tion-"we are reminded of his mother'sold threat that she should have [Hans's]widdler cut off if he went on playing with it" (35; cf. 7-8)-as a likely cause of Little Hans's symptoms. Freud suddenly interrupts his commentaryto appendan extraordinaryfootnote that would became the basis of psychoanalyticunderstandings of antisemitism.It reads: 2 Forexample, by 1911-12the writerand philosopher of the Germanyouth movement Hans Blidher(125-126) would employ the case of LittleHans as a prooftext of thesexual etiology of neu- rosis(as well as of infantilesexuality). This content downloaded on Wed, 26 Dec 2012 17:47:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Geller:The Godfather of Psychoanalysis 357 Thecastration complex is thedeepest unconscious root [ Wurzel] of anti- semitism;for even in thenursery [Kinderstube] little boys hear that a Jew has somethingcut off his penis-a pieceof his penis,they think-and thisgives them the rightto despiseJews. And there is no strongeruncon- scious root for the sense of superiorityover women.Weininger (the youngphilosopher who, highly gifted but sexuallyderanged, committed suicideafter producing his remarkablebook, Geschlechtund Charak- ter[1903]), in a chapterthat attracted much attention, treated Jews and womenwith equalhostility and overwhelmedthem with the samein- sults.Being a neurotic,Weininger was completely under the swayof his infantilecomplexes; and from that standpoint what is commonto Jews andwomen is theirrelation to thecastration complex. (36n. 1) In sum, hatredof Jewsarises as a reactionagainst "the dreaded castration" evoked by "its symbolic substitute"(1939:91) circumcision. This corre- lation of castration and circumcision not only undergirdsFreud's later elaborationof the causesof antisemitismin Mosesand Monotheism,but it informs both some of the earliestpsychoanalytic explorations of religious development (Reik 1923) and the most recent psychoanalyticinvestiga- tions of antisemitism(Tractenberg). More than stating a psychoanalytictruism about the symbolic re- lationship of circumcision and castration, the note condenses many of Freud'smultiple identity and theory constructions by binding gender, sexuality,and ethnicity/religion/raceto the workingsof the unconscious, neurosis, and the castrationcomplex. The significanceof this footnote is further increasedby its anomalous emergencein "Analysis":the body of Freud'stext bearsno explicit sign of circumcisionor other mattersJewish that could have motivated its inclusion. Consequently,in the last decade this footnote has traversedbeyond the pages of psychoanalysisto assume an increasingimportance in the new historiographyof Europeanmoder- nity and especiallyin analysesof the Jewishidentity and identificationsof Freudand his fellow CentralEuropeans. Recent analyses(Gilman 1993a, 1993b;Boyarin) find Freud'snonmention of the Jewishnessof LittleHans and, especially,of the convertto Protestantismand closeted homosexual Weininger-as well as of Freudhimself-particularly symptomatic of a Freud seeking either to deflect or to displace the implications of being Jewishin earlytwentieth-century Vienna. Moving beyond the brute facts of the political antisemitism of the Christian Social Party,which under KarlLueger governed Vienna from 1897,or the institutionalantisemitism that limited Jewishprofessional advancement,3these works (also see Le 3 Freud,for example, held that it wasantisemitism that delayed his appointmentas a Professor Extraordinariusatthe University of Vienna(Gay:136-139). The role of politicaland institutional anti- semitismin Viennahas been explored by many;see, especially, Wistrich; Katz; and Pulzer. This content downloaded on Wed, 26 Dec 2012 17:47:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 358 Journal of the AmericanAcademy of Religion Rider 1993) situate Freud and his writings negotiating the fin-de-siecle crises of gender, sexual, and ethno-religio-racialidentities. Freud him- self is seen as more participant than prophet as he endeavors to work through his own situation:the double bind of the CentralEuropean Jew. The Europeansociety into which many Jewslike Freudsought admission demanded complete assimilation to the dominant culture, even to the point of the obliteratingof any tracesof Jewishnessor Judaism;yet, often accompanyingthe demand was the assumption that Jews were consti- tutionallyincapable of eliminatingtheir difference.Freud, who identified himself with those Europeanvalues and the corollaryobjective universals of scientific positivism and enlightenment rationality,was identified by many with the epitome of particularity:the