The Freudian Calling: Early Viennese Psychoanalysis and the Pursuit of Cultural Science

The Freudian Calling traces the evolution of an early psychoanalytic science of culture by examining how the work of cultural interpretation became essential to the Freudian movement in Vienna in the years before World War I. Louis Rose explores Freud's writings on art, society, and history in light of the discussions and projects of his Viennese circle. Drawing on the history of psychoanalytic cultural science in Vienna, The Freudian Calling reexamines the development of Freud's own thought, from his biography of Leonardo da Vinci and the study of Michelangelo's Moses to the writing of Totem and Taboo and, finally, Civilization and Its Discontents.