L’inconscio.

Rivista italiana di filosofia e psicoanalisi

Call for papers n.4:

The historical unconscious

Psychoanalysis has been the subject of a thriving historical research for decades. Thousands
of articles and books have investigated its genesis, evolution, clinical cases and the
biographies of its most important representatives. The history of psychoanalysis has always
been considered as a peculiar case in the history of ideas, culture or medicine.
However, there is also an interesting “other side of the coin” in the relationship between the
two disciplines i.e. the interpretation of psychoanalysis as a means for historical investigation
applied to the individual or collective unconscious. Such an approach had already been
assumed by Freud and Lacan, the latter of whom no longer proposed a simple history of
psychoanalysis; he rather considered psychoanalysis as a form of history, despite a very
particular one.
Freud had also taken this idea into account in his Psychopathology of everyday life when he
compared the “covering memories” hiding the past of any individual and ancient myths. An
analogy that was to be arisen again and further developed in his debated essay on Leonardo
da Vinci.
Lacan assumed this comparison again in his Discourse of Rome, defining the unconscious as
“the chapter of my history that is marked by a blank […], the censored chapter”. The book
by the French psychoanalyst, deals with a detailed parallel between the sources and the
materials of the two disciplines insofar the writer connects monuments with the body,
archive documents with childhood memories, traditions and legends with personal and

L’inconscio. Rivista Italiana di Filosofia e Psicoanalisi

ISSN 2499-8729
inconscio.rivista@gmail.com
www.inconsciorivista.unical.it
familiar myths and the traces of such a history with the distortion of truths that is necessary
to put together those narrations that would have, otherwise, been incompatible.
Psychoanalysis thus is transformed – at least partially – into an investigation applied to the
psychical equivalents of historical data and inspired by historiographical methodologies.
Both the aspects of this relationship between psychoanalysis and history seem to
demonstrate that, even in this case, the discovery of the unconscious marks a point of no
return for any research on the so-called human or spiritual sciences. The aim of the fourth
issue of our journal suggests a reflection on the transformations that unconscious has
operated on historical studies. Does an historical unconscious exist at all? What is the
relationship between psychoanalysis on one side and history and historiography on the other?
Is a collaboration between historians and analysts possible?
Such questions have been asked to Carlo Ginzburg in an interview of our Journal, thus
focussing on the so-called “recto and verso” of the relationship between history and
psychoanalysis that was previously briefly described. The Italian scholar, in his 1979 essay
titled Freud, the Wolf-Man and Werewolves, demonstrated that historical and psychoanalytical
research can profitably collaborate. Moreover, according to Ginzburg, unconscious “affects
the behaviour of systems”, thus playing a key role in the investigations on history. He then
considered also the unconscious of scholars and its potential influence on historical research.
The interview also deals with methodological issues in that this conversation also takes into
account another essay called Spies where phychoanalysis is interpreted within the framework
of the so-called “evidential paradigm”. The conversation with Ginzburg also focuses on
other issues concerning the relationship between unconscious and temporality, the
“unconscious” content of images and of historical documents and, more generally, the
changes that psychoanalysis has produced in the relationship between philosophy and
history.

L’inconscio. Rivista Italiana di Filosofia e Psicoanalisi is an online double blind

peer reviewed journal. The Unconscious publishes papers in Italian, English, French, German

L’inconscio. Rivista Italiana di Filosofia e Psicoanalisi

ISSN 2499-8729
inconscio.rivista@gmail.com
www.inconsciorivista.unical.it
and Spanish. Each issue is divided into four parts: an interview to an outstanding scholar, a
monographic section, a section dedicated to general discussion and an appendix consisting
of reviews.
L’inconscio also published papers by Lucilla Albano, Fabio Ciaramelli, Francesco Conrotto,
Romano Luperini, Bruno Moroncini, Francesco Napolitano, Felice Papparo, Jacques
Rancièere, Élisabeth Roudinesco, Yannis Stavrakakis, Francesco Saverio Trincia.

Scholars interested in the topics can submit their papers to the following email address:
inconscio.rivista@gmail.com, along with an abstract in English (max 600 characters, spaces
included), five key words in English and a brief bibliographical note (max 400 characters).

The maximum length of the papers allowed in the three sections is the following:
- Monographs: max 40,000 characters, spaces included.
- Various: max 20,000 characters, spaces included.
- Review: max 10,000 characters, spaces included.
Papers should be submitted no later than 5th September 2017. The Journal will be published
on 31st December 2017.

L’inconscio. Rivista Italiana di Filosofia e Psicoanalisi

ISSN 2499-8729
inconscio.rivista@gmail.com
www.inconsciorivista.unical.it