Slobodan Markovich

Peter Gay’s observation that “for good or ill, Sigmund Freud, more than any other explorer of the psyche, has shaped the mind of the twentieth century” seems to be well-founded, whether someone is an admirer or harsh critic of Freud. Freud and his disciples launched a new discipline––psychoanalytic anthropology. It had a complex relationship with mainstream anthropology after WW2 and its cultural relativism involved the very topical issues of essentialism versus relativism, the realm of the unconscious, repression and culture, aggression, and identity. The discussion on psychoanalytic anthropology in its numerous incarnations has involved very prominent anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists, including Bronislaw Malinowski, Margaret Mead, Géza Róheim, George Devereux, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Norbert Elias, Ernest Becker and, more recently, Anthony Giddens, Donald Brown and Steven Pinker. The research is focused on the concepts of psychoanalytic anthropology that are still used in social sciences and humanities, the impact they have made so far, and the debates and controversies they have produced.